May 6, 2015 by carrievijil

Welcome to Cape Town, South Africa!!

May 2, 2015

We have spent the last three days in Cape Town, South Africa and we wish we had more time here! (Although that has been true just about everywhere!). We arrived to Cape Town from Phuket after a very LONG flight. We came through Doha, Qatar…it was quite a long trip, about 17 hours in the air. It wouldn’t have been too bad except that we were delayed on both flights; leaving Phuket, there was another plane stuck on the tarmac, then in Doha, there was a medical emergency on board so we had to wait for medical personnel to come on and check the guy out before we took off.

Once we arrived, everything went smoothly. Our shuttle was waiting to take us to the hostel and we got all checked in without any issues. That first day, after checking in, we took a train to go to Boulders Beach where they have a penguin sanctuary that was really awesome. Hayden has loved penguins for quite some time, so this was really cool for him. The penguins live on land here, this is one of the only remaining places in the world with a colony of land dwelling penguins. There were penguins in all stages of growth…eggs, baby chicks, older chicks and full size penguins. Some were playing in the water, but most were just hanging out on land. It was really interesting because some of them had nests in the sand where others had nests back in the trees or under bushes.

Penguins at Boulders Beach

Penguin with an egg

Penguins at Boulders Beach

Coming in from a swim

We also saw a couple of penguins getting a little amorous…lol.

LOL

The next day, we went to take the gondola up to Table Mountain. We decided to be adventurers and hike up to the mountain which turned out to be a nice, but long, walk. From our hostel it was only a few km to the base, but it took us about an hour to get there. Unfortunately, as we were arriving, we noticed that the gondola was stopped and it turned out that there was an ongoing rescue mission on the mountain so they had to shut everything down!! We waited for it to get going again and we were on in about an hour. The ride up was really cool. The mountain is about 3,100 ft tall and it just comes straight up from sea level. The views were amazing. We could see all of Cape Town all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope, the Southernmost tip of Africa.

Cable Car up Table Mountain

Top of Table Mountain

View from Table Mountain

We had lunch up on the mountain and then headed back down for the rest of the afternoon. That evening, we just HAD to go see The Avengers 2. 🙂 The waterfront was beautiful, and they had a huge shopping area where the movie theater was located. Adam and Hayden were very happy to get to see the movie, we were a little afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find it in English.

After a great night of McDonalds for dinner and the Avengers, we spent Saturday going Great White Shark Cage Diving!!! It was SO COOL!! The actual experience was really neat. There were a bunch of sharks and we had great views from both the top of the boat and inside of the cage. My only complaint is that it was windy and rainy while we were out on the water. The waves were very large and both Adam and I got a little queasy. We got some great videos of the sharks from both the top and the bottom. Unfortunately, the minimum age was 10 to get into the cage, so Hayden had to watch from the top. Realistically, it was just as well because with the waves, it would have been tough for him to balance in the cage without going under water.

Ready for some sharks

Our boat for the day

Great White Cage Diving!

In the evening, we had our meeting for the safari and met everyone that is going to be in our group. We have lucked out and there are only 6 of us traveling together! We’re pretty sure that it’s because of us that the group is so small…the tour company had to let people know that there was a child on the tour and apparently several people switched to different dates to keep it adults only. This works out great for us because we will have the 24 PAX bus pretty much to ourselves! 🙂

We take off first thing in the morning to spend the next 42 days on the road traveling through Africa from Cape Town all the way up to Nairobi, Kenya…it will certainly be the adventure of a lifetime!

May 3, 2015 by carrievijil

Phuket, Thailand…Last Day in Asia

April 29, 2015

It’s hard to believe that this is our last day in Asia. Time has gone by too quickly. The past 2 months have flown by, but now it’s time to start our journey in Africa.

We had a great last day here in Thailand. We left Krabi for Phuket since we will be flying out of here. We figured it would be better to get to Phuket a day early just in case we ran into any issues getting here. The busride was uneventful, but once we got to the airport (the drop off point for the bus), the day got a little worse. We were supposed to have a hotel shuttle pick us up, but it wasn’t there. After an hour and two phone calls, they told us that the shuttle would cost 700 Baht (about $25). We thought this was pretty insane since the hotel was only about 2 km away. We decided to walk to the hotel which would have been fine if we didn’t need to walk around the ENTIRE airport! The walk ended up being about 11 km and it was insanely HOT! Luckily, a very nice family saw us walking down the road and picked us up about halfway through the walk. They took us to the hotel and dropped us off…we were very thankful!

After that eventful morning, it turned out that Phuket was awesome! We stayed at a nice hotel that had a full water park on the grounds, so Hayden was in heaven. He was even tall enough to ride all of the slides, so he was pretty excited. As soon as we got in, we spent an hour or so at the water park before going back to get ready for dinner. They had a surf and turf buffet, so Adam was in seafood heaven. I’m pretty sure there is now a shortage of lobster in Phuket! lol

Seafood dinner!

Surf and turf for Hayden

The hotel was right on the beach, which was great. We watched the sunset and it was beautiful!

Sunset in Phuket

Sunset over the pool

Sunset in Phuket

After another great day at the waterpark, we walked along the beach back to the airport. This was the shortcut that we should have taken in the first place! It only took us about 30 minutes to walk from the hotel to the airport and saved ourselves $25. 🙂

Nice walk to the airport

Now it’s off to Africa to spend a few days in Cape Town before we leave on our 6 week safari through South and Eastern Africa!!! So exciting!!!

April 28, 2015 by carrievijil

Paradise Found…

April 28, 2015

It’s hard to believe, but our time in Asia has almost come to an end. I can’t believe how fast time has gone…having already been gone for 2 months seems impossible! This past week went even faster because we had such an amazing time.

We ended up taking a flight from Bangkok to Krabi to save some time. The bus ride was about the same price as a plane ticket, so we decided to get here quicker and save ourselves 8 miserable hours on a bus. 🙂

Krabi was absolutely beautiful!!! I can’t say enough amazing things about how beautiful the water, beaches, and surrounding area are. The first day we just hung out at the hotel pool and on the beach. We got out into the town for dinner and Hayden was ecstatic to learn that Thai Pancakes are a local street food. We have been telling him that we’re only eating local food, so he jumped right on that and told us that he would be eating local pancakes. His favorite with topped with Nutella and sprinkles. lol That night there was a beautiful sunset (although it turned out that EVERY night had a beautiful sunset!)

“Local” Street Food…Thai Pancake with Nutella and sprinkles

Sunset at Ao Nang

The next day, we went on a speedboat tour of several islands along with two snorkeling stops. I have been dreaming of these beaches since we put Thailand on the itinerary, so this was my highlight. Luckily, the beaches did not disappoint. I wish that I could post a ton of pictures because they were all amazing. The water color was unbelievably blue in the deep areas and completely clear green/blue in the lagoons/shallow spots. It looked like it was straight off of a postcard. We went to Bamboo Beach, Maya Bay (where the movie The Beach was filmed) and Phi Phi Don to spend time on the beaches. After that, we went snorkeling at Money Bay and another spot, but I can’t remember the name. There were a ton of fish and coral, it was like being inside of a fish tank. Even Hayden loved the snorkeling and up until this point, he has always been terrified of it.

Maya Bay (from the movie The Beach)

Buried alive!

Beach Time!

On the speedboat tour

Time to snorkel in Monkey Bay

Successful snorkeling

Amazing water

The next day, we went on a kayaking/swimming/elephant riding trip near Ao Nang (where our hotel was located). The kayaking was very nice, even though it was a little hot for us with the sunshine. We got into the mountains and it cooled off in the shade. When we were kayaking through the mountains, we were able to see monkeys and gibbons up in the trees…it was pretty cool to see. After we finished kayaking, we had a good lunch on the beach before we took off to go swimming in a local river. The river was a little chilly, but fine once we got used to it.

Kayaking through the mountains

Our view at lunch

Swimming in the river

I was so proud of Hayden, he even jumped off of the rope swing into the river! He was nervous at first, but I told him that I would do it if he did. He ended up loving it and jumping over and over!

Our last adventure for the day was elephant trekking through the jungle. We were pretty excited about seeing the elephants and they certainly were impressive. Our elephant was very nice and friendly. The Mahout (trainer) was super nice and we took a nice long ride through the jungle. She got to stop and eat some bamboo and grass as we were going along. I had read about trainers that used hooks/pokers to train the elephants, but they didn’t do any of that. He did have a hook with him, but he totally used voice commands that they said that they only use the hooks in the case of an emergency or impending danger to either the elephant or a person. Hayden has a great time and even got to ride on the front of the elephant. It was a little nerve racking for me because he wasn’t strapped in or anything, but he did great and loved it!

Elephant riding

Elephant Riding

We will be going to Phuket tomorrow for our last day in Asia before we fly out to Africa. The hotel where we are staying has a water park on site, so that should be fun for everyone!

April 28, 2015 by carrievijil

One Night in Bangkok and the World’s Your Oyster….

April 23, 2015

OK, so it was more than one night in Bangkok, but I’ve been humming that song every since we got to Bangkok! It was quite an ordeal to get here, but totally worth it once we finally arrived.

Getting from Cambodia to Bangkok seemed like it should be easy: get on the bus, go through customs/immigration, get to downtown Bangkok, take a taxi to where we were staying. Unfortunately, the border crossing was crazy and insanely HOT! We spent about 2 hours getting through immigration and there was ZERO a/c in the fully enclosed room that was filled full of a ton of people. Hayden’s look pretty much says it all:

OMG…It’s HOT!!

Once we finally made it through (and then managed to find our bus again), we spent another couple of hours getting to Bangkok. We were very fortunate to meet some new friends while we were in Siem Reap and they live in Bangkok, so they invited us to stay with them. They have 2 kids just about Hayden’s age, so he was super excited to spend a couple of days playing. Their house was awesome, and the kids had a fantastic time. We went to a water park that was on top of a mall for the first day. Hayden was also able to take advantage of the fact that they lived on an international school campus (they are both teachers) and use a real classroom to do homework for a change!

Mall top water park!

School Time!

The next day, we went into town on our own and went to visit some of the temples inside of the city. We were very lucky to meet a “tourist police” officer who gave us the low-down on where to go and how much to pay for a tuk-tuk. He even found us a tuk-tuk for only 40 Baht for the entire day (about $1.10), which we were told was a great deal. The driver was super nice and even walked us into each of the places and helped us to find our way around. We went to Wat Pho, the White Buddha, Wat Arun, Wat Traimit, Wat Ratchanatdaram, and a couple of other places. It was a nice change from all of the temples in China and Vietnam that looked similar.

Giant Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Wat Pho

Water Garden at Wat Pho

White Buddha Temple

White Buddha

After a couple of great days in Bangkok and some great new friends, we are heading down to the beaches in Krabi for a few relaxing days before we take off to Africa next week! Woo Hoo!

April 23, 2015 by carrievijil

Ziplining through Angkor Wat

What I Saw:

I saw Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and monkeys while ziplining.

My Favorite Part of the Day:

My favorite part of the day was going on the old bridge and going on the ziplines.

What I Learned Today:

I learned that a female snake is called Nagini. Nagini is the name of Voldemort’s giant snake. It’s very hot and there are lots of spiders, tarantulas, and Daddy Long Legs., Angkor Wat is almost 1,000 years old. It took 10,000 people to make it. It has lots of four face statues, known as Face Towers. The faces portray Jayavaman.

April 21, 2015 by carrievijil

Conquering Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

April 20,2015

Yesterday was a fun, but VERY HOT day. We spent the morning exploring the Angkor temple complex outside of Siem Reap. We had intended to spend most of the day here, but it was truly unbearably hot! I’m not sure of the actual temperature, but it had to be at least 100 degrees and much of the area is directly in the sun. After about 4 hours, we were all ready to get back to the pool.

We started off the day going through Angkor Wat. We originally thought we might try to make it there for sunrise, but we weren’t exactly early birds, so we got there around 8:00 am instead. In hindsight, we definitely should have goen first thing in the a.m. to avoid the heat and spend a little more time there. The temple itself was really cool. The Cambodian temples are much different than the Chinese or Vietnamese temples that we have been seeing, so it was great to see something different. The other difference at Angkor is that the temples are not “restored” like many of them in China. You can see where they have fixed some places (and there is tons of ongoing restoration), but you can also see the ruins and what has been destroyed over the past 1,000 years. We took tons of pictures, but it’s impossible to get pictures that capture how amazing it really is to see it in person.

In the tuk tuk

Angkor Wat

After spending some time going through Angkor Wat, we went over to the bigger temple complex, Angkor Thom. There are several temples inside of this complex that were really cool. Some are in better repair than others and some don’t allow kids, so we didn’t get to go through all of them. We thought that Angkor Thom was even cooler than Angkor Wat because you are able to actually climb around in the temple and explore the area.

World Heritage Site

Angkor Thom

Vijils at Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom

Vijils at Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom

Adam and Hayden had fun playing “Indiana Jones” inside of the temples! We did lots of exploring and adventuring during the day. Hayden had a great time finding the hidden doors and avoiding booby traps. lol

Hayden ” Indiana Jones” Vijil

Adam “Indiana Jones” Vijil

There were a few other areas that we explored before we gave up because we were SO HOT! It is really cool to see how old the building are and to see that first hand. There are lots of areas were the trees have grown over the buildings and into the walls.

Baphuon

Face Tower gate

Banyon Trees

It’s HOT!

April 20, 2015 by carrievijil

Flying High in Cambodia

April 19, 2015

Well, it has been an amazing 3 days so far in Siem Reap, Cam. Although we had to cut our time short here (due to the Visa incident stranding us in Hanoi, Vietnam), we still got to do just about everything that we had planned and tomorrow we will explore the Angkor complex. We did miss out on Phnom Phen where we wanted to visit the Killing Fields, but we decided to spend more our time in Siem Reap instead. We had also already done quite a bit of learning about wars in Vietnam, so Hayden would probably be a little overloaded learning about more fighting/killing. After a 14 hour bus ride (yes, 14 HOURS!) from Ho Chi Minh, we made it to our hotel at about 9:00 pm on Friday night (4/17). We spent Saturday hanging out by the pool and Hayden made a few friends while we were down there.

While we were checking into the hotel, we saw a brochure for “Flight of the Gibbon” and told Hayden about zip lining. He’s not normally a super adventurous kid (never been a fan of rollercoasters or scary stuff), but for some reason he was super excited about the idea of zip lining. We have been working to get him to try new things, so we jumped on the opportunity to try something new that he was excited about. We went first thing the next morning. The facility is inside of the Angkor park, surrounded by jungle. We got there first thing because we knew it would be hot later in the day.

They started by suiting us up and getting ready to go!

The Flying Vijils

Ready to zipline

I kept thinking that Hayden may get a little nervous, but he never even flinched! We went through the first few lines and he went all by himself! Here is a video of him going: (for anyone that is not a fan of Back to the Future”, the “they found me” reference is from the first movie…lol

There were a total of 10 zip lines and 4 suspension bridges that were all a ton of fun. We had a blast and Hayden is already pumped for another zipline trip!

Ready to go!!

We were able to get some really cool videos with the Go Pro camera…here is Adam on the longest zip line (about 900 feet)

At the highest point (where the video above started,), there is a treehouse that had awesome views of the jungle. We stayed up there for a while to cool off and relax before we went down the last three zip lines.

Up in the treehouse

View from the treehouse

Checking out the treehouse view

At the end, we repelled down to the bottom and took a group picture before heading back to the hotel

Group picture

Tomorrow will be a full day of visiting the Angkor complex to see all of the temples.

April 20, 2015 by carrievijil

Cruising Up the Mekong Delta

April 17, 2015

Yesterday we took a great boat trip up the Mekong Delta into a couple of local areas. It was neat to see the river from the point of view of the small, man powered boats. I’ll tell you what…those ladies that maneuver the boats like nobody’s business! Adam, Hayden and I each took a turn helping to paddle, but I’m pretty sure we caused more grief for her than we actually helped with the paddling. We’re not really sure how deep the water was (although I suspect pretty shallow) because it was so brown and muddy. Lots of trees and plants grow right on the side in the water, so it must not be too deep. There were several houses right along the banks as well, I guess it must not really flood all that often.

Vijils on the Mekong

Mekong Delta

Cruising on the Mekong

We paddled down to two different places; the first was a honey farm where we could hold the bees. Adam held them, but Hayden and I were too wimpy. I get a big puffy sore if I get stung and Hayden just didn’t want to do it, so we left that up to our bravest family member. lol After the honey farm, we went to a local “factory” where they make coconut candy. It was actually just a shed with the work equipment under a canopy, so it wasn’t exactly a factory, but they sure could pump out those candies quickly! Of course, we had to help support the local economy and stock up on candy. At the same place where they make the candy, they had a “pet” Python that we could hold. Hayden was a little hesitant at first, but got brave and held it on his own too.

Bee Keeper Adam

Making coconut candy

Hayden and I with the Python

Kissing my new snake friend!

Hayden with the Python

The last part of the trip was cruising up to a local Buddhist temple and statue area. On the way there, we passed a local fishing village where they were just lowering the nets into the water. After the boat ride for about 30 minutes, we made it to the temple. The temple was very pretty and the Buddha was HUGE! unfortunately, it was getting seriously hot by this time, so we were basically snapping a few pictures so that we could jump back on the bus with A/C.

Local fishing

Buddha statue

Tomorrow comes the LONG bus ride to Cambodia. We have heard that the road is terribly bumpy, so it should be an adventure!

April 17, 2015 by carrievijil

Exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels

April 15, 2015

For our first full day in Ho Chi Minh City, we decided to go see the Cu Chi tunnels. The bus ride took us about 2 hours outside of the city where they have an area set up for tours of the tunnels. Once we got there, the first thing that they go through is all of the different types of traps that the Viet Cong set up to fight the Americans. I have to say, I would NOT have wanted to be caught in any of these traps! They are very basic, but certainly effective…reminded us of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom type of stuff

Booby Trap

Booby traps

Whew…it’s hot out here

Tank climbing

After going through the traps and seeing a little bit of the daily life of the soldiers, we got to go through the actual tunnels. In the first spot, we could try getting into one of the hidden entrance holes, it was tiny. They could slip into these holes really fast and cover their tracks so that they could pop up and down around the area undetected. The next part was going through the actual tunnels. The tunnels have been widened and raised to accommodate tourists. After climbing 100 meters through the enlarged tunnel, I cannot imagine getting through these at actual size…those guys had to be tiny.

Cu Chi Tunnel

Hayden in the tunnel

Invisible entrance

Coming back out…

Adam in the tunnel

Adam going in the tunnels

The craziest part is that they lived in these tunnels for years. Not only the soldiers lived here, but village people too. They had sections for families, hospital areas, cooking areas, they even had a “honeymoon” area for newlyweds. For the most part, the local people would live in the tunnels during the day and come out at night to tend their farms and take care of their homes. At the end of the war, most of the people that lived in the tunnels and stomach parasites and many were actually mostly blind due to the lack of sunlight.

Tunnel entrance

After the tunnels, we came back into town and went to the War Reminenents Museum. In the same way as the Hoa Lo Prison, it was very skewed to anti-Americanism. All of the propaganda posters talked about beating the American aggressors and told how the rest of the world is against America. I guess it’s true that history is written by whoever is in control. There was no reference at all to the Vietnam Republic Party fighting against Communist Vietnam. We went through about 2/3 of the museum because it got a little graphic for Hayden to see. There were sections about the effects of Agent Orange and other chemical weapons that were used…pretty nasty stuff. We went through some of it to give him the gist of the info, but stayed away from some of the really gritty pictures. I guess I didn’t pay good enough attention in history class because I really didn’t realize how many people died at that time…sad stuff.

After a bit of a heavy day today, we are heading out to the Mekong Delta tomorrow to go on a boat and to see some of the local area.

April 16, 2015 by carrievijil

Cu Chi Tunnel Expedition

What I Saw:

I saw the Cu Chi tunnels. I saw the ground entrance doors and I got to go under one too. I also saw traps.

My Favorite Part of the Day:

My favorite part of the day was crawling in the tunnels.

What I Learned Today:

I visited the Cu Chi tunnels. I learned that they protected the Vietnamese from bombs. The soldiers ate, slept, and lived there. The traps were poisonous and blew up. I got to go into a secret tunnel entrance, that was by a tree, to the tunnels.

Vijil Family World Tour

Our Amazing Family Adventure

Author: carrievijil

Welcome to Cape Town, South Africa!!

Phuket, Thailand…Last Day in Asia

Paradise Found…

One Night in Bangkok and the World’s Your Oyster….

Ziplining through Angkor Wat

Conquering Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

Flying High in Cambodia

Cruising Up the Mekong Delta

Exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels

Cu Chi Tunnel Expedition