Aswan- by Elise

We got ready for the felucca, which is a type of boat. We went on a tour around the island and we saw some old parts of the city. It was so hot! After we went down to the river and got on the Felucca, that we were going to stay at over night on. We started to go for about an hour and then we went swiming in the Nile River, it was so cold! but refreshing! The second stop, was where we were going to spend the night, we got ready for bed and had diner. Then, we went to bed. The next morning, my sisters and I woke up with something that looked like chicken pox but they ended up being maskito bites. We were so itchi, especially wen you have them everywhere. Then, we went swiming again. I REALLY LIKE THE FELUCCA

Foods in Sri Lanka

These are some of the foods that we tried in Sri Lanka

Butter chicken

Papadam

Coconut sambol

Dahll and

Lots of rice!

These are some of the citys that we really liked in Sri Lanka

Colombo

Kandy

Nuwara Elia

Ella

Sigirya

Yala and

Mirissa.

What was really funny ls that our driver taught our parents how to eat with their hands so now sum times they eat with there hands and our driver ate with a fork. One thing that almost everyone does in Sri Lanka is eat with their hands.

I really enjoyed the safaris with the roof off the jeep! WE SAW LOTS OF ELEPHANTS!!!

Wadi Rum-by Amelie

Wadi Rum was in the middle of nowhere in Jordan. It was amazing! We stayed at another Bedouin camp. When we arrived (we had rented a car), we tried to go out in the sand, but of course, we got stuck. These nice Jordanians laughed at us and helped us out and we decided not to give it another shot. We drove in circles around the town, while the manager kept sending us voice messages. The voice messages were things like: “I see your car, come back, come back” or “that’s you, come back, come back” and “come back, come back”. He also said “I am waiting, come back, come back”. We finally found him and we put all our luggage in the back of a Toyota truck. We had a super fun and scenic drive through the dessert with huge boulders everywhere! When we got there, we went up to see the sun set on the top of a rock, it was so beautiful! Elise and I had so much fun making Inukshuks out of the rocks at the top of the mountain. That night we went to the tea tent and we hung out before going to dinner. Dinner was delicious, there was hummus, vegetables, pita bread, salads, baba ganoush, Jordanian desserts and chicken that was cooked under the ground. After dinner, we went back to the tea tent and played a card game. The next day, we went on a tour around Wadi Rum. First, we went for a hike on the rocks and to the spring, and had a beautiful view of the area. Then, we went to the sand dunes and did a redo of a picture in Mui ne in the sand dunes and took some interesting illusion pictures.

Mui ne

Wadi Rum

After the sand dunes, we went to a nice little place for a picnic lunch. The driver made a fire, cooked delicious chili, baba ganoush, pita bread and cookies. After lunch, we went to the small arch (which we did not find scary at the time) an took some pictures. My hat blew of because the wind was so strong. We went to go get my hat and the driver told us a sad story of 25 year old girl who fell of the arch and died. That made us all petrified. We went to the drivers wife’s house and she had two girls there with her. We had tea and played outside a little bit with the kids. After that, the driver dropped us of in the middle of nowhere and told us to walk through the sand for 20 minutes. We then drove to the big arch. The big arch was around 20-30meters high. Wadi Rum is so windy that we almost said we were not going to go on the arch. When we got to the top it was so high. My mom was the one to take the picture because apparently she wanted my dad to be in a photo for once (we all thought it was because she was too scared though). The next day we had to leave! We took a 3 hour drive to the airport in Ammon, next stop EGYPT!!! The place I never expected to go to…

Petra ruins-by Amélie

Petra is a city of ancient ruins in Jordan. It was built as early as 2,500yrs ago. First, the Nabataeans lived there. Then, the Romans took over. Later, the Christians came. Petra was damaged by 363 earthquakes.

Petra was spectacular and so different from all the places we had been so far. Even our accommodation was different. We stayed at a Bedouin camp in little Petra (just outside of Petra). The first night, we stayed in a little igloo-like house. The second night, we stayed in little circus tent with one bed and no bathroom (we had two tents). On the first day, we had a day trip to Petra to see the old Monastery, Treasury and a couple other beautiful ruins. People believe that a God has left a treasure in the top of the Treasury. On the way to the Monastery, which was a two hour walk, there were so many camels. On our way back, we even got ride one! At the Monastery, there was a beautiful view point of all the rock formations. The Monastery was a beautiful tomb built for one of the Nabataean Kings. On our way back from the Monastery, we had a lovely walk through all the markets and through the Sik. The Sik is similar to a long hallway that was used as an entrance to Petra. The Treasury is at the end of the Sik. We went back to the the Bedouin camp and had a not-so-good sleep in the circus tent. The next day we had to leave. We had a half day in Petra and did a side trail up to a view of the Treasury and past all the tombs. It was so beautiful! After that, we had a Shawarma (a chicken rap) and drove up to Wadi Rum, my next post.

Feeding Dreams Cambodia- By Elise

We woke up at 6:30 in the morning to go to the school called Feeding Dreames Cambodia that we were going to volunteer at. We were all really nervous. By the time we got there almost every one in the school was staring at us. It actually felt like you were a celebrity! It was really annoying when every one starts to touch your hair. Now back to the school. We all went to different classes: Amee went to the kindergarten, Anna went to a older class, my dad went to the class with the most kids and my mom and I went to the class below Anna’s class’s level. When we were all finished getting organized we started to teach the kids and we also played some games like :scatagories, hang man and a word game. It was really sad because we went to the slum which is were all of the people at the school’s families live with almost no water. At the end, the school made me feel like we don’t need as much as we have because we saw what the students had and it wasn’t a lot. It was a very good experience!

“Feeding dreams Cambodia” voulenteer school-by Amelie

On the first day of school, I was very nervous. In the morning, we went to their daily assembly. At the assembly, we introduced ourselves and sang songs with the school. After the assembly, Joe (the volunteer coordinator), gave us a tour of the school. Then, we got separated into different class rooms. I taught kindergarten, while Anna, my mom and my dad, taught older groups. On the first day, Elise watched the teenagers train to be a bartender or a waiter or a chef. For the rest of the week, she and my mom shared a classroom and the students looked like they really enjoyed it. The classes knew more English than you would expect because they get a lot of volunteers. The kids were so friendly but they did not have much. One day we went to see where they lived. They did not have beds, they had mattresses on the floor, and their houses were made out of thin sheets of metal, but they were happy. The school was from 8:00am to 11:00am, and in the afternoon the students would go to government school. In the morning, the teachers would ask us if we had anything planed for that day and we would play games. We would teach them new words, do drawings and do math. In the class rooms there were white boards, sometimes aTV, benches, and tables. There was one playground with only a slide, one very new and good looking soccer field and some room to run and play. There were two groups, one came in the morning while the other went to government school, and they switched in the afternoon. We taught the morning group every day and we only taught the afternoon group three times. On Fridays, the school only went from 8:00am to 9:30am and the they played soccer from 9:30am to 11:00am. The school was amazing for all ages and everyone in our family felt like they fit in!!! I would recommend it!!!

Mui Ne – by Amelie

In Mui Ne, we stayed at our first resort of the trip. We did not realize how much we needed it until we sat down at the beach and read our books and swam in the ocean. When we arrived, we swam in the pool and went to the beach at our resort. At the beach there were so many wind surfers, it was fun to watch them catch a wave and go flying! The next day, we took a two hour drive to see my moms old friend named Rita, her boyfriend named Drew and her aunt. We went to a market and to their family farm to get food for lunch. After that, we went to the aunts house and had a delicious lunch with chicken, vegetables and fruit. It was really interesting to meet Rita’s family, and learn about there experience in the Vietnam war. They were boat people and escaped Vietnam and came to Canada. The next day we had a very relaxing day we went to the beach for the day, and did nothing but swim and read. For dinner we went to a very fancy hawker stall with Rita and Drew. The day after that, we did not do much but we went to the beach with Rita and Drew. In the afternoon, we went to the sand dunes they reminded me a lot of the ones in Chile, but these ones were white! We had a lot of fun sliding down the steep hills and taking funny pictures. The next day we had to leave so we had our last delicious breakfast (a buffet). After that we hoped in a bus with Rita and went on a four hour drive…. next stop Ho Chi Min!

Ninh Binh- by Elise

Ninh Binh

These are sum of the experiences that we had in Ninh Binh. Ninh Binh is in North Vietnam.

We stayed at a Homestay with a lovely family in Ninh Binh. We had a delicious meal that the owner of the Homestay had made for us.

Are family rented motorcycles. We went to the Muha caves and took lots of pictures. We went to the big pagoda and the big Buddha. We saw the tallest pagoda and the tallest Buddha

We went on a boat for 3 hours. We went threw 3 caves and one was a km long. The boat people were paddling with their feet. We went to a lot of temples on the boat ride

Hoi An- By Elise

Wen we rented motorcycles in Vietnam. It was really fun! Amee my dad and I rode on one and my mom and Anna rode on another. And we went to a really big Buddha.

We went on a bike tour. We went on a bamboo basket boat. We had a Lunch at a Vietnamese Family’s house. By the way l rode my own bike. One of are stops were seeing people making carpets.

We got bikes from are hotel, I rode on the back of my mom’s bike a lot. We saw a famous bridge that had a dragon on it. We saw lots of lanterns. We went to the beach and had lunch.

I REALLY LIKE HOI AN!!!

Visa issues and Ba na hills-by Amelie

Most of traveling is easy, but there can be some difficult times too. Here is one of them:

To enter Vietnam you need a visa. When we got our visas, our entry place was written on them. After we got our visas, we decided to fly into a different city in Vietnam. We thought it was okay to have a different port of entry, because it was in the same country, but the airline proved us wrong. When we got to the airport, the airline said we had to have the the exact port of entry written on it. We had to rebook our flight so we had enough time to buy another visa and then we could go to Vietnam. We got our pictures taken, but by accident we put in my birthdate wrong, so we had to pay for another visa. We thought it was okay after that, but when we got to the airport the airline said that on my moms visa there was one wrong number. We had to buy another visa! That’s twelve visas we had to buy in two days! We finally got on the airplane and went to Ho Chi Min. There was a layover in Ho Chi Min city, and the airlines said that they had not rebooked our second half of the flight. They had to rebook it… AGAIN! We are no longer flying with that airline! I think all that was worth it because Vietnam has been amazing so far!

“Ba na hills” is a popular hill in De Nang. From Hoi an it takes about one our to drive there. When we got there we took the longest gondola in the world and actually the longest one, that was about 45 minutes and 5 km long up to the top of the mountain. At the top of the mountain we walked around, saw the big Buddha and went to an old French wine cellar. We also went to the Golden Bridge which was so cool because there are hands made of stone holing up a Golden Bridge. It was hard to take pictures tough because there are so many people. After that we took another gondola down to fantasy world (kind of like a amusement park). We waited in a very, very, long line so we could go on this super fun roller coaster where you are in charge of the brakes (I went at full speed). We also went on a fun spinning ride and went to a Jurassic place were you see dinosaurs. We went for lunch at a restaurant in the French colony and got western food (i will not put in exclamation point after that because I prefer Asian food). We also took some funny pictures while my mom and dad went to a beer plaza. After it was time to go back to Hoi an.