Long time no post ! I would like to detail my path to going vegan, why I did it, how I am doing it, and answering some of the questions that even I had when… More
Get there then eat the same things as at home ?
Here I am, a ‘Berta girl traveling across the world to eat corn on the cobb….
what the hell am I doing?
It is hilarious when you go traveling and you spot a McDonalds and you get excited… or a Burger King. I could NOT be bothered eating at either of these places when I am at home, I swear I have eaten at more McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Pizza Hut’s in Asia than I have in my own province. But whyyyy!!!
It’s probably the familiarity. The food is delicious there, but we see something in the mall that reminds us of back home and we have to eat it.
PS. Being from Alberta, Canada and going to Subway in Asia asking for “ranch” sauce and getting told “what’s that”…..
What did you eat from “back home” while you were traveling?
What colour are the beaches in Greece
If you are in the market for visiting Greece then you know that Santorini is a must see !
Not only is it literally picture perfect, but it has many beautiful beaches with many different colors of sand !
They have the regular sand colored beach (of course), they have the beach with red sand (pictured above), and they even have a black sand beach !
The black sand beach should have caution signs around it in the day light, that sand gets super lava hot ! Funny… because the red sand beach was the one beside the volcano 🙂
Tranquilo Bar on the black sand beach in Santorini is a MUST! Go there and eat the best chicken wraps and french fries with dip you have ever had in your life… I promise.
Learning to motorcycle in a busy city in the Philippines
One of the cool things about traveling, especially in cheaper places such as South East Asia, is the ability to travel like a local.
Instead of taking constant cabs around town, or walking literally all day, why not be like the locals and rent a motorcycle for the day? We had done this many times before when we traveled, but I had always been on the back of the bike, telling my driver where to go and basically just enjoying the wind in my hair.
In Canada I had been dirt biking before so I figured in the Philippines why not try to ride my own motorcycle? It’s not like it had a clutch or gears I had to master like at home…
I didn’t even make it down the busy street before I walked my motorcycle back to the rental shop, got my money back, and hopped on as a passenger once again.
Asia has organized chaos to their streets. I don’t understand it and may even call it dangerous in my own head, but it is not to them… they understand it! Adding me into the mix of things was not good, I was still trying to get my grips with the bike itself let alot figuring out when to stop, when to go and why these people were passing me on all sides. It was all too much !
If you are in South East Asia and want to try out a bike, then do it ! It is a really fun and cheap way to get around. If you are confident then you will have no problem hopping on and driving around like a local. If you need some practice I would suggest testing the bike out in a less populated area and slowly working your way up. It would be a good idea to not have a passenger on the back of the bike as well if you are not the most confident driver, and of course, helmets! You never know what could happen in these busy streets so it is best to pop on a helmet if you are nervous !
I later came home and purchased my own motorcycle (Suzuki S40), and got my motorcycle license ! All in good time 🙂
Traveling with a fear of heights & water
Are hammocks really that awesome ?
What do you think?
I enjoy hammocks that are already set up, on a beach or a resort somewhere. What I don’t like about hammocks is trying to put them up yourself.. how high do I put it up so I am not dragging on the ground, and so I don’t have to run and jump to get in.
I tried sleeping in a hammock once, I got out with diamond shapes pressed into my body and a ton of bug bites on my back. Not to mention if you get them wet they smell like wet dog for the rest of their life.
Introverts on a party vacation
I am a weird combination of introvert and extrovert.
I love being alone, or with few people I know really well at home. I enjoy my space most of the time and I don’t really go out all that much on the weekends. But I have times where I am mentally prepared to have a great time and I go out, I am the life of the party I talk to everyone and I have a few laughs.
Usually when I go traveling I prepare myself for the extrovert me, trying to get myself into the groove of meeting new people and probably drinking and partying quite a bit more than I would at home. But after a few days of doing this in a row I can become quite cranky and not into it.
This is what happened when I went on a New Years trip to Nicaragua when I was like 20.
I showed up with a bunch of people I knew, ready to have a good time. But the 10 day trip of constant partying and people surrounding you got me down. By the time I left I felt like I hadn’t really explored Nicaragua at all as I was too busy running around with a drink in my hand and sitting at bars, I was ready to go home. I even got myself really sick on night on the trip just from being uncomfortable and anxious. It was this trip that I realized maybe I was done with the organized group tours and ready to just go out on my own and travel.
There were many people on this trip a lot older than I was yet I felt like the grandma of the trip, making sure everyone was OK, and basically being a “mom” the entire time.
I will have to go back to Nicaragua to see all the beauty that I actually missed !
Do you let people read your travel journal ?
Rice Terraces – Philippines
You have to go !
Here is what I have noticed in my life… I doubt I am alone. Since we have constant entertainment at our fingertips now… youtube, facebook.. we can’t even sit in a doctors office for 5 minutes without checking our newsfeed, I find I am not impressed by much..
Think about it, you go to a street performer festival and these people are swallowing fire and swords, they are doing back flips while balanced on ladders, and you enjoy watching it but you leave impacted… like yah that was really cool.. but I probably won’t go around telling everyone what I saw. Why? Because you have seen the same thing, or something more insane on the internet.. it becomes not as interesting.
This is kind of what I have noticed while traveling. I know, BOOO me. I find I get to a place that I hear about all the time, like the Sistine Chapel in Italy, and I am like… cool…. a painted ceiling.. (I mean I WAS 15 at the time so I might enjoy it more now). What I don’t realize a lot of the time is THIS IS REAL LIFE! This beautiful view is not your computer screen saver… this is reality that your eyes are seeing, Fricking enjoy it GIRL!
Well, my crappy unimpressed attitude was completely changed when I was to the Rice Terraces in the Philippines !
This place is more beautiful and “cool” than any photos you can see. You might flip through pictures online and be like “yah I have seen better”, but when you see the Rice Terraces personally, it is amazing. I am not a fan of hiking and we ended up hiking all day around this world wonder. We went up high, we had to shuffle across tiny ledges, we had to walk down the steepest staircase I have ever seen with no hand railing and a cliff right beside us, we stopped for a rest at a waterfall, and we encountered unbelievable views.
So if you are anything like me, hard to impress, or you just want to see something that will leave you breathless (literally, the hike will), check out the Rice Terraces.
Traveling with a fear of heights & water
Most people in the world have fears: snakes, spiders, the dark, heights, the ocean, sharks, water in general. These fears might make traveling difficult since you will probably encounter a cockroach, or gecko in your room (depending where you travel), and traveling to a place like Australia would be a nightmare for someone scared of reptiles and big bugs.
I have 2 fears… heights and water. I have been in Santorini Greece watching a beautiful sun set from behind a wall because I was too scared to climb the wall or stand too close to the edge. My fear of water is different… I enjoy the ocean a lot. I don’t really have the fear of sharks or creatures in the water (unless I am warned of it), and I enjoy swimming around and going in and out of the water. My fear is from putting my head under water, even for half a second..
I am not sure when this started, I don’t remember ever having a near drowning experience. When I was a kid I could swim with my face under water no problem. I would open my eyes and see how fast I could swim without my eyes burning. One day I guess I just woke up terrified to do it.
I try not to let these 2 fears stop me from having a great time while traveling. I purposely pick places where you can swim in the ocean to travel to because I love them. I have tried scuba diving before but only made it as far as the pool, not out to the ocean. It was all fine until I started thinking “hey I am under water and breathing… too weird” and I would jump up. I will try Scuba diving again this Summer in Vietnam, hopefully I make it out to the ocean this time.
As for my fear of heights, I don’t like standing at the very edge of a massive cliff… and I never will. As for activities, I don’t let my fear hold me back. I have gone paragliding and up in hot air balloons, and I mean all the flights I take… those are heights as well.
I remember one day in the Philippines everyone wanted to go out to this cliff jumping place… I just thought to myself.. great, my 2 favorite things in the world… combined into one! Haha, I am not a cliff jumper either.. but I did jump off the smallest cliff one time. That was enough for me, I had fun watching everyone else jump off the huge cliffs.
What are your fears? Do they impact your traveling?
Take the picture or enjoy
I always wonder if it is appropriate to take the picture.
I travel to explore, for an adventure. Sure taking pictures and uploading them to facebook is great, other people love to hear about your trips and sometimes the pictures help you remember all that you did. I love reminiscing on my trips when I am stuck at work or in a snowstorm and pictures are a great way to do that.
But..
Sometimes you see those people who hiked a huge mountain, or are watching fire works or a show and they insist on taking non stop pictures, and watching the view or performance through a screen. I wonder what those people have as motivation to even go? Can’t you just google a video or picture, do you really need to be there then? Maybe our generation is so enthralled with our phones or camera’s that we don’t even realize we are doing it… we see one thing that is cool and we automatically want to snapchat it.
Then you get to the places like war museums, Auschwitz, Pompeii, places where really horrible things have happened to people like genocide, or being sold as slaves, and you see people taking photos. I understand to a degree, you may want to go home and show people you know will never go what it looks like in Auschwitz. I myself have a photo of my friends and I in Pompeii where they sold the slaves.. I don’t think we planned it at the time “cool, they bought and sold people here.. let’s selfie” I think it was more like “finally we don’t have a crowd around us, let’s take a picture”. But looking back, was that really appropriate?
There was a man who wrote an article and attached photos he found online of young people posing, or taking “profile pictures” in these types of places. He then photo-shopped in the background pictures from history where the Jews were starving to death, skin and bones, with this girl in the front doing a yoga pose. It really surprised people I think. The overall reaction was “how could these kids take those kinds of pictures in a place like that”, but unless he put the historic pictures in the background would you have ever though twice before?
The tourists that pay money to the locals that have a monkey or a snake on their shoulders to hold that animal, take a quick photo then give it back drive me insane. A huge snake, a monkey, all these animals do not want to be held. They are not our photo props, they are wild animals. How do you think they are treated when they are used soley as a pay cheque? They are stolen from the wild, drugged, and forced to be passed around like stuffed animals so that tourists can have a profile picture of them holding a monkey. It’s not right. Again, most people would not even think these things, they would see an opportunity and take it.
Off topic: I am an animal lover, completely. I grew up with dogs and I want to cuddle and hold literally anything that has fur. The biggest lesson I learnt when it came to animals was when I bought a pet rabbit. Rabbits are prey animals that hate being cuddled and held. I had to learn that my rabbit shows me affection way differently than my dog does.. she just wants to be in the same room as me, maybe sit on my lap for a head pet, and that was good enough. We can’t just assume all animals are the same as our household pets.
I have a love hate relationship with electronic devices and I am not sure where I stand all the time on it, I flip and I flop.. But I try to remind myself when I reach for my camera or phone… is this really necessary and appropriate?
Do we travel to take profile pictures ?
Getting sick on vacation
I don’t mean the drank too much kind of sickness..
Getting sick on vacation is the best thing in the world ! All the time you spend getting shots, taking medications, bringing medications, and then you get some weird sickness that you have never even heard of before ! Awesome, right!?
I have had my fair share of sickness on holidays from drinking too much and puking (on beaches so that’s paradise), eating too much and puking (I entered an eating contest, at least I won), horrible stomach cramps (probably because I did not want to hike that day… let’s be real), but NOTHING prepared me for this !!
No, this wasn’t an allergy. I know this because I was in a hospital in Thailand being treated for an allergy for many a days and hours. Nothing helped, it only got worse.
I spent the day on a motorcycle, cruising around the town and going to the beach. It was a super hot day out and I was loving it ! In the evening time we went for some drinks and played Uno on our porch. I felt like my forehead skin was a little tight, whenever I would raise my eyebrows it looked like I had a goose egg forehead. I did have a small sunburn, so I figured that must be it. I felt completely normal.
The next morning I wake up and look in the mirror to see this horror…. I looked like Quasi Modo. My forehead had swollen much larger, my one eye was swollen shut (yet I could still see fine… hmmmmm), and I basically look like I took on an entire Muay Thai fighting team and lived. Again, I felt completely normal ! I did not feel sick one bit ! I could breath fine, everything was all good. Wearing sunglasses you could not tell the horror that laid underneath. I went to the hospital and got an IV, I got allergy medications, I got this and that and cream and boom.. nothing worked. So I continued to grace the other tourists with my lovely face for the next 4 days cause I was there to party, not sit in my room.
After a few days my face started to go down and I never did get sick. I rode it out and nothing has happened since. During this time I was going through a super stressful time (my traveling partner had to go home for an emergency and I had never traveled alone before). After they left and I had a few days too cool down and realize it wasn’t all that bad was when my swollen face started to go down again. I think this was my bodies way of protecting me, making me look like a fool so I was safe… so no one would come near me.
Let’s just hope I never get this stressed out again.
Have you ever gotten sick on vacation?
Do you let people read your travel journal ?
I am one of those people who keep a travel journal..
I do not have a journal, or diary, or whatever you want to call it, at home. I only buy a new book for every vacation I go on, and I write in it everyday.
I write about where we are, how we got there, how I liked the place we were staying, the flight/ train, how long our main flights were and if we got sick or not. My favorite place, or what we did each day. I write down if my travel buddy is pissing me off, or if I wanted to travel with them again. Basic things that I can read in 10, 20, 50 years from now that will bring me back to each trip and make me feel like I was there again.
BUT I DON’T LET ANYONE READ THEM. There is nothing incriminating in them, and if you are on the trip with me you know exactly what I am writing in there, but there is just something about people reading what you physically wrote that bothers me… IRONIC since I started a travel blog..
Do you let people read your travel journals?
Flashing Glimpse 