2nd Year: In Review

You may remember my post last year telling you where we went during Jason's 1st year at Southwest Airlines. Now, it's officially been 2 years since Jason started and we've definitely continued to take advantage of the perks. In addition to the US travel, we did a LOT of international travel during the past 12 months. We are pretty much pros at flying standby on other airlines. Also, we've mastered the art of packing in carry-ons (even for a 17 day SE Asia trip).

By the numbers:

10 countries visited

57,468 miles logged

130 hours in the air

2,886 pictures taken

20 bags of honey-roasted peanuts eaten

I've added a new tab ("Where We've Traveled") to the top of the blog so you can see everywhere where we've been, so I won't be repetitive here. We've gotten pretty used to being on flights and even better at traveling together in general. We've had some great flying experiences and a few not so great ones, but the trips have always been amazing and more than make up for any annoyances. We always fly standby and didn't encounter a full flight or anything that prevented us from making it back home. We've had some serious close calls, but we've been pretty lucky so far! I feel like I could write a whole book on surviving the non-rev system...

Plans are still up in the air (yes, pun intended), for Jason's 3rd year at SWA, but we have thrown around the idea of going somewhere in Central America or Mexico with the Gold Passes or AA points. We're also planning to make a trip to England and Scotland. There will be plenty of US travel mixed in there too (including 3 traveling weddings). In addition to the confirmed trips we are taking, you can also see our wish list for all of the trips we eventually plan on taking on the "Upcoming Travels" tab.

Whale's Tail - Belize

Isle of Skye - Scotland

Big Ben - London

My next trip is to Orlando, FL here in a few days for a work conference. I'm so excited about checking something off my bucket list - visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I'll let you know how butterbeer tastes! I'll also be swinging by Magic Kingdom for a night. After that trip, it's mainly traveling to weddings to round out 2013.

Well, I'm off to plan our trips for year 3. I'm sure it will be just as amazing as this past year. Here are some of our favorite moments from Jason's second year at Southwest Airlines:

Sound of Music bike tour in Salzburg, Austria

Aggies at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany

 Picnic at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

Walking the Lavaux terraces in Montreaux, Switzerland

 Dinner along the Danube in Budapest, Hungary

In a tuk-tuk exploring Angkor in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Cruising through the karsts in Halong Bay, Vietnam

Tasting the sour mash at the Willett Bourbon Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky

Boulevard Brewing Company behind the scenes tour in Kansas City, MO

Feet in the sand in Key West, FL

Visiting the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand

On top of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Sante Fe, NM

 Hiking in Deep Cove in Vancouver, Canada

Cheers to Southwest Airlines in Koh Samui, Thailand

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Our pick up for our tour was bright and early and we spent the next 3 1/2 hours on the bus en route to Ha Long City. We got to learn a little bit about the mythology behind the bay, which means "Bay of the Descending Dragon". According to legend, the dragon spit out jewels that created all of the limestone karsts that make up the bay. Ha Long Bay is also a UNESCO World Heritage site and was recently named as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

Once we arrived, we were promptly ushered onto a small boat to take us out to our "junk boat" for the next 2 days. Once we were on board, we were shown to our rooms which were honestly really nice and way better than expected. We made our way up to lunch where we got to know our travel companions for the next few days - an older couple from Ireland and 2 couples from Perth, Australia. The food was insanely good - there were between 8-9 courses every meal and it was all amazing (if you like seafood). We looked up from lunch and we were already out in the middle of the bay!

We spent the next few hours drifting serenely between the karsts. The fog in the air gave the bay a very mysterious feel. Apparently, it was extremely common for the time of the year we went. If you go in the hotter time (June-October), it's clearer, but also like 100 degrees out. We were totally fine with 80s and mist!

Our first stop was a cave that was in the middle of one of the karsts. It was cool, but it was a dead cave. Nothing new is being formed there and it was sad to see that much of it had been grafittied.

When we got back, Jason went for a swim while I got some sun up on the top of the boat. That evening, we got to go to a cooking class on board where we learned how to make spring rolls. I was literally the only person that messed this up. They were using a towel to moisten the rice paper and apparently I got it too wet. It tasted fine regardless! 

Jason took an attempt at squid fishing that night, but I went up to the deck and had some Tiger beers with the Aussies. It was SO nice to have no language barrier after over a week of struggling! I was really worried about being anchored in and getting sea sick, but the water was so calm that I didn't even notice we were on a boat.

We woke up the next morning to a 6am tai chi class which we followed by breakfast and kayaking. This was definitely one of the highlights! We went through this tunnel into a lagoon where monkeys were playing and swinging between the vines. We got so close to them!

After this, we had to head back to shore. We really loved our time out on Ha Long Bay. There was a 3 day/2 night tour option we wish we had done, but we still had more to see on our trip.

This would end up being Jason's favorite stop of the trip. For me, my favorite was our next stop - Siem Reap, Cambodia!

Hanoi, Vietnam

We arrived in Hanoi and immediately noticed the CRAZY traffic. Apparently there are 7 million people in the city and 5 million mopeds (according to our Ha Long Bay tour guide). That leads to another comment: honking your horn here is a language of it's own. It can mean, "hi! I know you!", "I'm here, don't hit me", "I'm not stopping, so you'd better get out of my way", "My car is bigger - I win", "get out of my way, @sshole"...you get the point. I have never heard so much honking in my life. And the driving? A one lane road can fit 3 cars and like 10 mopeds lengthwise. Walking anywhere is a challenge as well. If you have to cross a street, you just GO. Street lights mean nothing. Walk confidently and hope to not get hit...we didn't!

The main point of our trip here was that it was a good hopping off point for tours to Ha Long Bay. This meant we had about a day before and after our cruise to explore Hanoi. We started with a walking tour around the Old Quarter. Streets are named for the goods they sell (or used to sell), so it was cool to see an entire street dedicated to jewelry, electronics or silk.

We ended our walking tour at Hoan Kiem Lake. Everyone congregates here and it is a great little break from the craziness. Hoan Kiem means the Lake of the Restored Sword. As the story goes, the King of Vietnam was given a sword by the Turtle God. After the king defeated the Chinese, a large turtle came from this lake and took his sword back from him, it's mission being accomplished. There is still a Turtle Pagoda to commemorate the lake's turtles today.

We also visited the Ngoc Son Temple on an island in the middle of the lake. We reached it by crossing the famous Huc (Rising Sun) bridge. When we got inside, we saw offerings of cookies, beer and incense - interesting?

The last thing we really wanted to do in our short time here was visit Hoa Lo Prison (aka Hanoi Hilton). This was a prison used by the French and later by North Vietnam for prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. Probably the most famous prisoner was Senator John McCain. We went through the museum and kind of saved our commentary to each other until we got back to our hotel. We both felt that it was funny that when the Vietnamese were detained there by the French, it was "horrible and they were faced with unsanitary conditions", but when the US prisoners were there, it was "fair and humane". I have read some accounts of US soldiers there and it seemed far from humane. As always, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We took everything we read there with a grain of salt, but it was interesting nonetheless.

John McCain's flight suit

One thing people have asked me a lot is how we were treated being Americans in Vietnam. We were only there a short time, but we mostly encountered extremely friendly people. I know it's still a sensitive topic for the older generation, but I really feel like this should be a place more Americans visit. We didn't meet a single American person when we were in Vietnam and I think this is sad. Honestly though, we didn't encounter very many Americans in SE Asia in general.

We enjoyed Hanoi, but we were glad we only had 2 days there. There wasn't a ton to do outside of what we did. Next up - our 2 day cruise around Halong Bay!