Before, Now, and After

Thousands and thousands of apologies for the lack of posts lately. We've been traipsing around Southeast Asia and have run into several weeks of slow internet, making it a bit tough to get posts up. More posts and details are on the way, but for now, here's a little taste of what we've been up to. Pictures included so that you know we're alive and well :)

Thailand:
In Thailand, we spent a big chunk of time in the lovely city of Chiang Mai. We took a crazy bus ride to Pai, which is a hippie-heaven in the hills.

Jumping for joy in Pai

A cool temple in the woods in Chiang Mai

Pai's lovely mountains

Motorbiking around Pai

The White Temple outside of Chiang Rai. It's even cooler looking in real life.

Laos:
We entered Laos on a riverboat, which was a great entry to a beautiful, laid-back country. We couldn't sit on a bus or boat for more than 20 minutes before our local seat-neighbors would offer us a bite of whatever they were snacking on. This was one of our favorite countries of our trip.

Riverboats

On the riverboat

Cool cliffs of Vang Vieng

Enjoying the sunset from our hotel

Purchasing some delicious coconut things

Trekking in the jungle

Countryside

Tom at dinner at a homestay in a village

Cambodia:
We bicycled around small villages, learned about pepper-picking (Peter Piper was busy with the pickling, unfortunately), and saw the sun rise of Angkor Wat.

Delicious breakfast, Cambodian-style

Tom's massage place. 

Sunset in Kampot

Wave jumping

Beachy

Dried fish for sale

Fresh crabs with Kampot pepper

Sunrise at Angkor Wat. Note the coffee. 

Angkor Wat

Climbing to the top of some temples

Angkor Wat

Vietnam:

So far, we've explored the very cool Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), the mountain vacation town of Dalat, and a charming, but heavily touristy port town called Hoi An.

Over the course of the next to weeks, we will slowly making our way up through Vietnam. As of now, we plan to stop in Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa, and a few national parks to get some hiking in. After that, we're headed on a plane to...

Nepal!

A map for the geographically confused (like me)

We've decided to spend the last chunk of our trip trekking in the Himalayas and exploring some of Nepal's mountain towns and villages. We're really looking forward to getting into the mountains again and seeing such a cool part part of the world.

More posts soon to come!

-R

Road Trip from Marseilles to Paris: Part 1

In late June my parents came to join us on a two-week road trip from Marseilles to Paris. We rented a car and had a great time stopping in towns and cities along the route, mostly staying two nights in each place except for Paris where we stayed for four. In many of the towns we rented apartments where we'd make at least one meal a day--which of course always consisted of at least two French baguettes, a variety of local cheeses, and wine. We hopped from towns in the Riviera to the Western edge of Switzerland, through a small portion of Germany for one afternoon, and then to Paris. It was good to make the trip with family after being away from home for so long.

We penciled in a rough map of our route. Here it is.

Through the Bus Window: Cambodia

We passed this man and his pig on the road to Phnom Penh today.

Happy Friday!

-Tom

Recipe: Thai Beef Salad

One of our favorite dishes from the Thai cooking class we took was Thai Beef Salad. Yes, a salad made from beef. I think it would be delicious at a summer barbecue. (Ah, how we miss those!) You should be able to find most of the ingredients back in the States, but I think you could get the same effect with some substitutions. This recipe comes from the Classic Home Cooking recipe book, which they gave to each of us after we finished the class. If I haven't said this enough, I very highly recommend them.

Thai Beef Salad (Yam Nua)

Ingredients:
- 100 grams of beef (That's about 3.5 ounces. If you're cooking for a group, you might want to quadruple everything. It's that good.)
- 1 tablespoon of finely sliced shallots
- 1 tablespoon of thinly sliced lemon grass stems. (Don't eat these unless they're sliced very very thinly. They're not poisonous or anything, just a bit too fibrous and flavorful to eat on their own.)
- 1 tablespoon spring onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon mint leaves
- 1 tablespoon sliced cucumber (I'd use a bit more if you want to make this a bit more 'salad' and a bit less 'beef.')
- 1/2 tomato, sliced

Ingredients for dressing:
- 1 tablespoon crushed garlic
- 2-4 crushed hot chilies. (If you're using the original recipe amounts, I'd recommend no more than 2 peppers, unless you like things with lots of heat. To crush the chilies, use the flat part of your knife to sort of roll the pepper open.)
- 3 teaspoons of lime juice (Adjust to taste. I like it extra-limey.)
- 3 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon palm sugar

Method:

1. Grill beef and then cut into thin strips about 1 inch wide. (I recommend grilling to somewhere between rare and medium rare.)
2. Mix all dressing ingredients in a big bowl. Add the beef and other ingredients.
3. Sprinkle mint leaves on top. Serve with lettuce, cabbage, or whatever else you have on hand.

Happy eating, Thai-style!

-R

A Thai Cooking Class in Chiang Mai

Tom and I both really love Thai food, but since we eat it so rarely at home, we usually stick to our favorites like green curry and pad thai. We were really excited to get to Thailand and eat our way through dozens of menus (and we definitely did!), but we also wanted to spend a bit of time learning about the food and how to prepare it so that we could make some edible souvenirs when we get home. 

We decided to take a Thai cooking class while we were in Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. It seems like everyone and their mother runs a cooking class in Chiang Mai, so we read some reviews and decided to go with Vanee and Meo from "Classic Home Cooking," based on a review which said that it was like cooking with your grandmother. I am so so glad we did a class with them. The food we made was incredibly delicious, and they were wonderful hosts to us. Since it was the off season, we were the only two students in the class and so we got tons of attention.

Beach and Island Hopping in Thailand

After the craziness of Bangkok, Tom and I wanted to take a bit of a vacation from traveling. (You'll notice this is a theme for us. We also 'vacationed' in Melnik, Bulgaria and Colonia, Uruguay, as well as a few others.) We figured that the islands and beaches in Southern Thailand would be the perfect place to unwind for a few days.



We flew into Phuket, spent a few nights in town, and then headed to Kata Beach, which was just a quick bus ride from Phuket town. We treated ourselves to a few nights at a resort just a few minutes off of the beach with a great pool. Plus, swans. The beach itself was gorgeous, with warm waves and clean sand and views of islands in the distance. At first, we were a bit apprehensive about going into the water. Since we were visiting during rainy season, we'd heard to watch out for riptides and jelly fish. We did see some red flags warning of riptide areas, but we swam happily and jelly-fish free for hours. When your biggest complaint is that the water is 'just a little too warm,' you know that you've found a pretty great beach.

Friends Visit, Part 1: Budapest, Hungary

On June 8th we were happy to have some visitors from home come travel with us for two weeks.

The guy on the left is Sito. He's from Madrid, Spain and we met back in 2008 in Washington, D.C. where he was studying English. He's a great guy and we've traveled together before a number of times, both in the US and outside. I hadn't seen him in a few years, so it was great to catch up. The one on the right is Ian and he and I have also traveled quite a lot together. We go back all the way to our freshman year of college. He has a nice beard.