Since I dont not have the time to upload pictures, right now. I will give you the link to my aunts blog and she is a much better blogger and gets her pictures up.
So if you would like to see hers it is:

http://zoeandraineygreatescape.blogspot.com/

Jordan

When we landed in Jordan in the evening, it was such a surprise because its completely different to Sri Lanka, the people look different, the scenery is different, the houses are built differently. Jordan is mainly a huge desert boarding Palestine( Israel). But like all the rest of the countries, we have visited its beautiful. And may I say the people were the nicest people out of all the countries….they went the extra mile to help us, find our way around Jordan. I’m going to put a lot of detail into Jordan because I absolutely loved it!!I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to travel somewhere AMAZING!!

It took us a little while to set off in Jordan because we couldn’t find a guidebook and there was a huge language barrier, so we had no idea where anything was. But when we looked out the window we saw one of the mosques which we needed to go to, so we got up and started walking, to find out that you cant just walk a straight line there and that’s a lot farther than we thought. So after alittle while we got in a taxi ( with a guy who couldn’t speak any English) and went to the mosque. It was this huge blue mosque, with incredible detail but to get this mosque we had to put on these big black gowns. So in we went in our black gowns.

Afterwards, we went to this old roman city called “Jerash”. Its really incredible how this city is still around when it was built hundreds of years ago and have the things made today don’t last more than a year or 2. And its not some crumby place, the city beautiful and the buildings are so detailed with big columns. Some person or many people would have to chiseled every single piece; I don’t think anyone today could get this built.

The next morning, we set off at the early time of 4am, and got into a taxi to Petra, which was even more amazing than Jerash. To get into Petra city, we had to take a horse-n-buggy through the caverns and out of nowhere you see alittle crack and you see this huge building which was the treasury and like all of Amman it had the huge columns and the detail. I could not believe someone carved this into a mountain, hundreds of years ago and all they had was a hammer and chisel and made this master piece. The person who built it doesn’t even get any credit for the beauty. We had to see the treasury and the Monastery. To get to the monastery, Bill said we had to take a donkey. So here we are riding up the mountain on a donkey ( who thinks the best place to walk is 2 inches from the 90 foot drop). We finally get to the monastery and you stand there just staring.. thinking how did they get this done?
Then we get back to the flat ground , still on the donkeys back, and theres nothing but sand and one rock. Guess what happens…..my donkey trips on his own feet and Lily hits the only rock. So now I have a broken camera, and 2 bruises. This will be a story I will be telling for years to come. “ You know when I was in Petra, I fell of a donkey”.

After Petra, we went down to Wadi Ram, where we had to ride camels by this time, I swear this camel is going through me off as well. But it didn’t. A part of the scavenge was to put on a headdress and ride like Lawrence of Arabia. So here I am on a camel pretending to charge on a non-moving camel with this Muslim headdress on. Yes, I have a video of me doing that. But im not posting it. Sorry, just too embarrassing for the internet.

The “Dead Sea” was the next scavenge we head off to do…and may I say I think this is something everyone should do before they die. “Try” and swim in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea , has not one living in it…..nothing. But to get to the Dead Sea took a lot of effort because our taxi driver, we presume has a restaurant or market as well because on our way to the Dead Sea, he decides he needs to stop every 10 feet to buy “cases” of vegetables.

He didn’t understand English so there was no way to tell him that…we hadn’t eaten our mandatory’s yet.
An hour later, we finally reach the Dead Sea at this cute little resort, we change and go into this sea. And when you try to swim your entire body floats to the surface and you end up looking like your sitting in a lounge chair. It was the weirdest thing. I didn’t understand how that could happen but it has something to do with the natural chemicals in the sea. Then this Jordanian guy comes running down the little hill with a plastic bag filled with blackness. The blackness was mud which we had to put all over our body. We looked so disgusting looking but it was so cool. After you wash off the blackness, you feel so soft and smooth.

After we got cleaned up from the Dead Sea, we went to this bridge which leads to Palestine.

We finally got our mandatory’s out of the way. Which had me nervous all day because it was 8:30 when we reached the restaurant and check in was 10. This game can be nerve-wrecking at some moments.

Jordan was a blast, I wish I could write everything about every place but there is too much and not enough time to write.

But before I say goodbye, I would like to tell you something to really tell you how “nice” Jordanians are. We had to go to this greek-orthodox church to look at a mosaic on the ground of a map of Israel, but when we arrived the church was closed, so we were standing outside of this huge church when this sixteen year-old boy comes and he opens up the entire church for us so we could see this mosaic on the floor. And when we tried to give him some money for being nice, he told us to give it to the church instead. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met. Then afterwards he walked us to the diner where we had to eat the next part of the scavenge.

Sri Lanka

This leg was by far the hardest so far, that’s why it’s a “6”. By the number “6”, each leg is ranked on difficulty and 6 is the highest. The two words I would describe Sri Lanka are “beautiful” and “steps”.

Even though it was hard, we had a lot of fun and I did some things that I never thought I would ever be able to accomplish.
Our strategy for this leg was to hit all the bonuses because they are worth A LOT of points and also the bonus seemed like a lot of fun and they were.

So the first day we head off on a 4 hour train to Anuradhapura ,since we didn’t start scavenging that day until the evening, we got into the town at 9. So we just went to a hotel and went to bed. But the train was the most interesting train I have ever been on, it was this old train with no air conditioning ( just to let you know it was like 100 degrees outside) and it really made me think about how great my life is at home; because I have house, and its not made out of mud and sticks and I have electricity and showers…and I have food. Also the train station didn’t even have a proper bathroom just a hole in the ground which had rats playing in the hole. That freaked auntie Zoe out…so she would just giggle randomly when she thought of it.

So in Anuradhapura we went to see this is a really old tree, over 23 centuries to be exact. This is supposedly a sapling of the tree where Buddha got enlightened under. It is being held up by big pieces of iron. To get to this tree took a lot of effort because to get to the tree you have to pass through a temple and even though I was wearing pants to just above my knee and a sleeved shirt, I was inappropriately dressed and so was Auntie Zoe and Uncle Rainey so we had to go and buy pieces of cloth to cover and this is how we ended up looking.

After the tree, we had to go to 3 different types of temples. One was the third tallest structure in the world. It was this huge “Stupa” in the middle of nowhere, but it was beautiful and it was completely monkey covered. There were monkeys everywhere. Another we had to visit was the “Ruwanwelisaya” which looked like a white bubble coming out of the ground and there is 100 elephant statues, surrounding the bottom of it. Then the last one we had to do was climb up this mountain to get to the Mihinitale, which is another bubble shape temple and you can see most of Sri Lanka from up there. It was beautiful. This was the start of the million steps we did in Sri Lanka.

After we left, Anuradhapura to go to our next town, (sorry but i dont know how to spell the name of it). Guess what happens…our car breaks down. So we have to hitch hike in the back of a truck. Just to let you know…this is 2nd time on the trip we had to hitch hike. Uncle Bill’s motto is “Trusting Strangers, in Strange Lands” and we have done that.... a lot.

In the town, we had to look at all these old sculptures made years and years ago. And they are all in like perfect condition. This is the place where supposedly Buddha’s tooth was held for many years.

Then we were off to Sigiriya, where we climbed the 2nd set of steps for the day. The climb was up this huge rock, where the King decided he wanted to build his house years ago. He built his house up on the rock so he could get rid of his fear of heights and he built it in a shape of a lion. There is nothing left of the house and the only part of lion left it the paws.

Afterwards, we had to go to this hotel, He knew we would need it after the hike. And while we were there, there was this old couple by the pool and she had red hair and this little leopard print swimsuit and he had his little African print spedo on. Sorry, that was just hilarious so I had to blog about it.

Im just going to skip some of the other scavenges, because im on a train right now in Europe ( that’s how far behind on blogging I am) and we are about to get off in 20 minutes.

The last thing Im going to write about is that fact, that now I CAN DO ANYTHING IN LIFE NOW!! Because I have climbed Adam’s peak which may I say is 4870 steps to the top….and 4870 steps back down in took us 5 hours to go up and down. And yes I felt like I was going to die half way up but Auntie Zoe had magic beans which are like jelly beans with vitamins which give you energy. I wont lie, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done or will ever do. I knew I was going to make it to the top because there were old ladies running up the hill and one woman was going up on all fours, so I thought if she could do it, I knew I could do it.

Im sorry there are no pictures in this blog....but it takes extremely long and right now i dont have the time to put them up.

Chang Mai

I know im one of the worst bloggers ever...but its tough scavenging all day, then when you do have time to blog , you cant get internet and then your always tired because some days you wake up 5 and dont go to bed until 11; but im trying my best.I know i say this at the beginning of every blog, Chang Mai was also a very beautiful and amazing place. We had a great time. Since im soo behind on blogging im not going to go on for very long just say the things i enjoyed the most, so i can try and catch up so i can write the Sri Lanka leg afterwards.

One of the things i loved the most about Chang Mai, is the first day we got there and got the books and set out and found our guidebook and we got both mandatories out in the first hour which is ...The Best!! so you have no stress later on trying to get them done.

We went to this night safari, where you get in this tram and you drive through and they turn on the lights as you pass. I saw every single animal that i always wanted to see; hippos, kangaroos, rhinos,zebras...nearly everything was there. As we exited the tram, we went and got to play with these little lions.

Later after the Safari, we took our tuk tuk which had disco lights, kareoke, a tv, and an engine for a racecar, which passed every car along the way to this Broadway house, where we watched this A-M-A-Z-I-N-G show called "Playhouse". The women in the show beautiful, I was very surprised when every person in the show was male. Those men fooled me, they were so pretty.

I loved the show though, great music, costumes and there was this one guy ( dont know his name, he didnt speek english) who was the best dancer i have ever seen in my life.

The last really awesome scavenge we had to do was go to this elephant place, and watch elephants do different tricks so we had a set of dancing elephants ( that was soo cute and funny) and then we saw another elephant play instruments but the best had to be.......THE PAINTING ELEPHANTS!!! It was so amazing, they paint all by themselves besides when their mahout gives them the paintbrushes and one painted flowers and the next painted elephants and the last painted ab-stract. They were incredible, they can paint ebtter than me. We actually ened up buying a picture which we will probably regret while having to lift it through Europe but, who cares, its a cool picture and also mum is going to lift it. :D

Laos ( Second Half)

In Laos, we also rode elephants,so while we were waiting for the elephant ride to start we ate...none other but ..RAMIN NOODLES. It seems to be a world wide thing. Riding the elephants werre super cool because this was my first time actually riding one more than 10 feet. I realized how smart elephants actually are , riding them because the guy would barely move his foot and the elephant would go left or he would say something in Lao and the elephant would understand.

I have no pictures besides that one ( above) of us on the elephants because you cant take a picture of yourself on it, so i will just show you the rest of the pictures with the other teams. After leaving the elephants, we took a tuk tuk up the hill, which took a little while because we were in the tuk tuk. We went to these beautiful waterfalls which we got to swim in, the falls were beautiful but the water was …F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G. We had a great time though, we swung off the rope swim, which caused alittle conflict because, i supposedly jumped off the wrong side so i had atleast 40 Lao people yelling at me to go the other direction in Lao, but everything was fine and then I swam for a while, because mum didnt want to get wetter than she already was. Then took the long journey back home. We did not do anything really after the 3 hour drive back because it was rainy and there was a power cut because of a storm that passed through Laos. So we went back to the Hotel.

Uncle Rainey is going to love that I put this picture up of us :)

Laos ( First Half)

We were in Laos for a day and a half, Laos has been my absolute favourite so far, it has been incredible. I got to wet random people with water guns for fun and not have them yell at me for wetting them. I was allowed to do that because in Laos their “Water Festival” was going on and it when people get buckets, hoses, waterguns and wet every person they can see. There was red water, green water, pink water and by the end of the day ….we were soaked! And when I mean soaked ….I mean wet for 7 hours straight.

<--This was me at the beginning of the day....and this was me at the end of the day. -->

Me, Mr.Rainey and Mr.Brian got so into the festival, we got loaded guns and we shot everyone and we shot eachother.

The Pak Ou caves was this cave, that has every damaged Buddha in Laos, but to get there we had to take a taxi, and on the way there, we ran into a fallen tree. So we all got out and started moving this tree and this random guy came with his machete and started hacking up this tree and in 5 minutes he cut down the entire thing so we could move it. Brian another team member , wanted to try cutting it down and lets just say….he wasn’t as good as the Lao man. We had to wash a Buddha at the caves, after taking a short boat ride to the mountain it was on.

Then on our way back to the island, we got caught. This little 3 year old boy as cute as ever looking all sad asked us to pay for this little bird. And after we looked at him for 5 minutes, we couldnt resist.

Hanoi ( Vietnam)

Hanoi (Vietnam)
Sorry, that this post is so late. The Internet in Laos down, so I did not get a chance to put up this post.
Vietnam was completely different than I expected, it looks so different in real life than in movies. Vietnam was beautiful, we had a great time, the only thing I can say about Vietnamese people, they are the most terrible drivers in the world.

These are some of the things we accomplished( like i said before, i can not write on everything):

We went to the Purple Pagoda, which is a temple in the middle of this island, it’s a cave with all these carvings in the roof and Buddha’s; but to get to the temple you had to go by a “swung” which is a wooden boat and then we had to hike up this huge hill to the top. We met this nice lady named “Ban” who helped us to get there. First we had to take a hour long taxi, to this small town to buy the tickets, where at least 10 people come and knock on the windows asking you to buy something, and then you get to the next town ( the picture on the left is off the bathrooms in this town, i only showed you the outside because the inside is not something you want to see), then get on the swungs and ride down this people river with all the mountains around. You arrive at this small pier and everywhere are these little shops and alot of them have roasted dogs hanging from the roofs ( if i lived in Hanoi my lunch would be my dog). We finally reached the top and it was beautiful. Pictures can say more than words so here the pictures are.

In Vietnam we also visited the Hanoi Hilton, where they held the US pilots (where John McCain was held), i think they tried to make it sound better than i think it really was because they were saying how they treated the soldiers nicely...but nothing is nice in war.

We did alot of war related scavenges, we went to the top of Hanoi Tower when you look down you can see some of the shot down US planes from the war, we went to see B-52 plane which was a US plane which was shot down and landed in the river, and then as you see above we went to the Hanoi prison.

Another scavenge I really liked was going to Ho Chi Mien's estate, Ho Chi was the King of Vietnam until he died in 1979. He is being preserved in a mausoleum and he looks perfect, probably a few years younger than he did when he died. At this mausoleum you had to go through all these procedures and if you go to my mum blog you can read them all, and everywhere had all these 4-5 year old school children.

They thought my shorts were to short, so i had to put on Mr. Rainey's shorts and it was freezing and all i had was my pink and purple rain jacket, so don't laugh at me and my basketball shorts. The guy next to me is Travis, yes, we all know he is tall, no reason to comment on it. He is a really nice guy, always tries to convince me to eat disgusting things like water buffalo, but he always loses the battle because I'm not eating that.Unfortunately, Travis and April are leaving in 3 days :(. May I also say everyone in this competition are really nice and I love hanging out with them.

The last thing im going to write about is the fact that Uncle Bill wanted us to eat "tit ran" which in english means snake. So we drove out to O Sin which is the restaurant which we had to eat it at, and the first thing you see is someones house, you walk through their bedroom and back yard, and they have the snakes in bags on the floor of their house...i was eating it until i saw all the snakes in jars. I just couldnt bring myself to do it. So i made mum do it.

Hong Kong ( day 2)

Hong Kong ( day 2)

We did 2 bonus’s that day, and they were to go across to Macau and do various scavenges and the next was to get to the highest floor on a building as you could. ( we tied with another team for those points because we both made it to the 55th floor of a building)

We did a lot of really cool challenges on day 2, one of my favorites, besides the bonuses, was going to the FCC building to see the “real” amazing pictures taken from the Saigon war in Vietnam. The one we really had to look at was the picture of the last helicopter leaving Saigon and every person trying to get on.

That day we also had to take a “peak tram” to the top of a mountain and take a picture and go through the Hong Kong Park Green house with 600 different types of birds.
We also went into this little alley to buy a chop and seal which is a kind of stamp with your name in the bottom, the man who made them was very helpful as of the fact that he spoke English and could tell us where to go.
The mandatory’s which we had to do that day were eat lunch at a Portuguese restaurant at Macau and we had to go to eat lunch at Lei Yue Mun market.

The Portuguese food was great but the Lei Yue Mun market is definitely something ill remember for the rest of my life. You walk into the market, and every where are live fish swimming in small fish tanks, and there are people chopping up fish everywhere and we go into this back room with only 2 people in it besides the 10 shop sellers outside, and very surprisingly they sold hot dogs, so we ordered one, it was so bad, but just the entire experience of the weird fish in the tanks will stay with me.

Later that night we went to the light show, it was really foggy so we couldnt see it but still it was an experience.

Hong Kong ( day one)

Hong Kong (Day One)

We have spent the last 2 days in Hong Kong, and may I say that it has been wonderful. Hong Kong is amazing and we have done some really awesome things, which I never thought I would do. I’m not going into detail with every scavenge because we did a lot, but I will write about the ones I liked a lot and some that I thought were….very interesting.

The first day we arrived in Hong Kong, we took a bus to the hotel which was absolutely beautiful with fountains and chandlers which look like they cost a million dollars.

We got to settle in a little bit then Uncle Bill gave us our first scavenge book, we sat down for a few minutes plotting where we wanted to go and trying to figure out how we got there, and these are some of the places we choose to go:

They asked us to “explain the wounded beasts at the base of the HSBC building”, the wounded beasts are two bronze lions which were wounded in World War II, named Steve and Stitt.

We also choose to do “ Take a ride up to the top of the world’s longest escalator”. This challenge we did at 8:30 at night and we knew check in was at 10, so we ran the entire thing, we definitely did not expect it to be that long but it was, and every time you thought it was over, it really wasn’t.

Another really amazing thing that we saw in the first day is that, every Sunday, all the Pilipino house-keepers who live in Hong Kong, go into the city on their day off and have picnics, and every corner you look are more groups of women playing cards and eating lunch.

The 2 mandatories which we had to do that day were “ Have a traditional dim sum lunch at City Hall” and “Have something daring at She Wong Yee’s-Causeway Bay”

The Dim sum was actually really good, even though there was a slight wait…it was still really good, but other things they were trying to serve us besides the dim sum were very …interesting looking.

Something daring is what we got at She Wong Yee's, we ordered chicken and pork trying to play it safe because we weren’t really sure what we were getting ourselves into but, they took the chicken and pork and made it daring. The pork was pretty good but the chicken, I let mum do that one, it was this yellow chicken which was cold and had this sauce on the outside which looked alittle…weird but it seemed to have been served at every restaurant in Hong Kong.

We did one bonus that day and that was to take a chair lift to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world, the chair lift up was hilarious because Auntie Zoë was freaking out, she thought we were going to fall and die but guess what….we didn’t. The chair lift up, in my opinion was amazing, you could see most of Hong Kong from up there, it was beautiful and Buddha was gigantic, and he was beautiful as well with all the detail someone put into making him perfect. I just wish it wasn’t so foggy but it was still great.

After the long day, we went back to the hotel and just crashed.

San Francisco - flight to Hong Kong

My blog is a few days late because in Hong Kong, you have to pay for internet and I wrote this blog on the plane to Hong Kong. So this blog is about my time in San Francisco, we didn't scavenge in San Francisco but we still did alot on our own time.

We spent the last day and a half in San Francisco…and all I can say is that it is absolutely beautiful, and the Palace hotel where we stayed was gorgeous.

We arrived on the 8th of April, and we immediately went to Hunan’s Chinese Restaurant which served us a mountain of food, and this tasty tea which was the best ( I’m being 100% sarcastic when I say that) but Mr. Rainey seemed to like it a lot!

When we went to the hotel I felt so out of place because everywhere you looked you saw everyone person wearing tuxedos and dresses to the floor and I was wearing a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt and all I could think was …”what’s going on here?”

On April 9th, we woke up early and went to this cute café a few blocks from the hotel called “Tart to Tart” where we ate breakfast and had one of the best donuts I have ever tasted.
We decided to take a tour of the city, in case we did not end up scavenging in San Francisco, so we took a walk through China town.

Then we went to Fisherman's Wharf which had a bunch of Sea Lions just tanning on this floating boards....making alot of noise.

As we were being to walk back to the tour bus, I just had to get some funnel cake (which is one of my favourite food in the world) and may I say it was delicious.

The tour then went to “The Golden Gate Bridge” which is HUGE!! And I felt so bad for the guys who have to paint it red every year, because they start painting in January and don’t finish till December, then they start all over again. Isn’t that a job you would love to have.

As we were riding around you could see Alcatraz, which is this island where they used to hold prisoners and no one had ever escaped besides one man…and how he got off, no one knows. The island in my opinion looks pretty similar to the island in the movie “Shutter Island”.

Later that day, we went to this cute restaurant called “LuLu’s” and they served us a ton of food…it reminded me when I went by Marina’s house and her grandmother just keep on bringing the food, even when you were full.

At dinner Bill announces our first destination which is………HONG KONG!!!!!!!
So right at this moment I’m on a plane to Hong Kong, it is like 10 hours behind home so I’m going to completely skip the 10th of April…weird huh?
Well I’m super excited to go to HONG KONG!! I’ll try and keep posting so you can read about my experience.