Beyond The Maple Tree

X-Mas in Vietnam

After such a great X-Mas in Mui Ne last year, we just couldn't resist going back and escaping the Canadian cold. We were excited to see and hang out with all the great people we met last year in Vietnam.

Thanks to Peter and Phong, we manage to go back to the same hotel as the previous year (which was 1 minute from the beach). We quickly settled back into our simple routine: eat, drink, sleep, work, kitesurf, repeat.

The wind this year was very unusual for the area.. weaker and with several no-wind days in a row, but we still managed to have many great kitesurfing days nonetheless. After 2 months, we can definitely say that our kitesurfing skills have improved.

Here is a video update of Dom's mad new kitesurfing ninja skills:

It was another successful Xmas adventure abroad. We're happy to have some more awesome new memories of the great times we had with everyone here.

Heroes vs Villains

After 2 weeks in Vietnam, our friend Steve (whom we met in Greece), organized a "Heroes vs Villains" theme party for his birthday. Finding supplies in the small town of Mui Ne, Vietnam, to make a last minute costume is a bit of a challenge!! ...but everyone managed to pull off some great costumes in the end - we were impressed.

2 weeks in Orlando

By November, Canada was already starting to get too cold for us, so we decided to go join Jen's parents in Orlando for 2 weeks of working, shopping, and fun.

We considered going to Disney, but a few people recently told us that Harry Potter world at Universal is pretty cool, so we decided to check it out.

We visited the "Island of Adventure" park where Harry Potter world is located. They did a really good job of recreating Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. We rode some dragons, visited Hogwarts, drank Butterbeer and even ate dinner at the Three Broomstick (a surprisingly really good and affordable meal!).

Most people may go to the park for the rides and attractions, but we had a blast taking cool pictures.

Almost forgot, Jen's dad had a temporary midlife crisis and found a new plastic girlfriend ;)

We also spent a day visiting a state park where you can see manatees (sea cows) in a protected area. The park was nice and the manatees were cool to see... even if they don't really do much other than sleep, eat, and breathe :).

Lastly, we spent most of the week enjoying some great meals, wine that Jen's parents picked up in Barcelona, and working from the super nice timeshares that Jen's mom rented :).

Halloween in Canada

We've been back in Canada since mid-September, but it seems we've been a bit lazy in keeping our blog up-to-date! We were pretty busy with meeting up with friends and family and restocking on supplies for our next adventure... that's right - we're planning to leave for a few more months with Vietnam, Bali and Australia currently on the radar.

We spent Halloween in Montreal where we were invited to Dom's sister's Halloween/Birthday party... our costumes were a bit last minute.. hopefully we did not disappoint! ;)

To end off the night, Dom's sister's boyfriend's band played some really great tunes while people danced and we played tag with the kids.

And check out the awesome cake that Dom's mom made for the occasion!

Protecting Your Stuff

We didn't carry a lot of gear while travelling, but what we did bring was really valuable to us. Here are some of the theft-deterrent tricks that we used for our trip.

Laptop Stickers

We wanted to bring Jen's MacBook Air with us, but we were concerned that it was easy to spot and snatch. As a deterrent, we decided to cover it with stickers to hide the fact that it's a shiny new laptop. The stickers hide the Apple logo and when the laptop is closed on a table, it's so thin than you barely even notice that it's a computer.

Hidden eBook

We brought a Kindle because it saved a lot of space and weight compared to a stack of travel and reading books. From reading other travel blogs, we learned that Kindle screens crack rather easily. We looked around at expensive covers and came up with the idea of just hiding it inside a used hard-cover book. This way, if we accidentally left it out in our room, it would just look like a regular book. It took a bit of work, but it really worked great!!

Two extra things we did to help enhance the cover:

1) We put velcro on the back of the kindle and inside the cover so that the Kindle didn't fall out while reading with the book upright.

2) We glued a stretchy band to the back of the book, which wraps around the front cover ensuring that the book remains closed while carrying it.

While in Bali, we actually did end up cracking the Kindle screen.. but the flaw wasn't with the cover! We were reading so much there that we decided to take the Kindle out of the cover and... accidentally sat on it… :( If it had been in the cover it would have been fine! ...lesson learned!

Map Wallet

Wallets are really easy to identify and tend to be a key target for thieves. Before we left, we found a wallet (at Chapters!) that looks just like a folded map. We thought it was quite clever since if you take it out in public or accidentally leave it on the table in our room, it just looks like a typical tourist street map.

Secret Pockets

Lastly, the secret pockets: this was by far the best thing we did...

On our previous trips we always wore the typical under-clothing money-belts, which are annoying/uncomfortable to wear and... aren't so secret anyway (since most tourists wear them and the belts are easily spotted when you lift your arms).

For this trip, we decided to buy a smaller version of those under-clothing pockets, removed the straps, and sewed a long strip of velcro to top. We also sewed the opposite strip of velcro to the inside of each of our shorts and pants and... Ta-da! Interchangeable secret pockets that are significantly more comfortable to wear and sit on the inside of your normal pant pocket so it just looks/feels like you have stuff in your normal pant pockets!

If you are doing a long trip and want to do this, here are some pointers:

1) Sew the non-scratchy strip of the velcro to the inside of your pants! This way, if you decide not to wear the inside pocket, the scratchy velcro won't drive you insane!

2) Only sew (and re-enforce) seams on the top edge of the velcro strips:

- On the pants/shorts because will allow you to more-easily flip out the secret pocket from your pants when you need money.

- On the secret pocket because if you sew both the top and bottom of the velcro strip, some currencies won't fit properly into the pocket.

By the way, the idea behind having a secret pocket is to carry/store larger amounts of money around (and credit/bank cards)... we almost never expose the hidden pockets in public. We still always carry and use our normal wallets with enough spending money for the day.. it sorta acts as a decoy so that if we do get pick-pocketed, we'd only lose a day's worth of cash.

Hope you enjoyed the post! Travel Safely!

Istanbul

Istanbul is the only city in the world that spans 2 continents. It's very eclectic, where old clashes with the new. At one point in history, it was the capital of Rome, and was later conquered by the Ottomans. A lot of history happened here and a lot is still left to uncovered - many historical sites are still buried meters below the modern city.

During our 2 week stay, we took time to visit some of the most popular sites: Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Church, Basilica Cistern, just to name a few.

We also walked around the Grand Bazar and the Spice Market.

Since we stayed near Taksim Square in the Beyogul district, we went for a daily walk down Istiklal Avenue for fun.

On one night, we were just going out for some dessert and tea when we accidentally walked through a protest. Istikal Avenue is always filled with a crowd of locals and tourists at every hour of the day. Nothing seemed unusual until we heard several people start whistling, cheering, and chanting. We had just arrived at our destination and sat down inside, when we suddenly we saw people running down the street with the police chasing them. It turned out to just be a small protest so we had nothing to worry about, but it was interesting to see the game of cat and mouse that the protestors were playing with the police. This protest was definitely a lot less nerve-wracking than the La Paz protest we walked through several months ago, where miners were igniting small sticks of dynamite in the streets! :)

Kitesurfing in Akyaka

Continuing with our new kiting addiction, we rented an apartment for a month in a tiny town called Akyaka, along the Gokova Bay in South-western Turkey. This kiting location is known for its calm shallow water and the fact that it's always windy.

From our apartment, it took about 30 minutes to walk to the kitesurfing beach... and it involved crossing a waist-deep river :).

The beach was really nice (sand!! :)), but the location was very crowded in August especially with a lot of beginners. If you walk your kite about 200m out into the bay, you could usually find a bit of space away from all of the out-of-control beginner kites :).

Yes, you can actually walk 200 meters right out into the bay, the water is super shallow as you cross the various sand bars. In some areas it gets so shallow that your board can actually dig itself into the sand... while you're riding.. On multiple occasions, we found ourselves flying off with the board left behind, firmly wedged in the sand. :). (We secretly had a pretty entertaining time watching other unsuspecting visitors also get beached and go flying off too.)

Our skills have greatly improved since our first lessons in December, we're much more comfortable and now enjoy riding upwind and practicing basic tricks (ie. like turning!).

Dom even started jumping waves... nothing big, just fun small stuff for beginners. Kitesurfing is especially fun for this since it doesn't hurt to fall! (..yet?)

Lastly, we met a group of Turkish friends who came here together on a quick kitesurfing vacation. We were just hanging out nearby their friend's shop and they each came out to introduce themselves to us, and invite us to hang out at their friend's school where there are chairs, shade, music, drinks... They were all super nice and made us feel welcome right away (even though they were only here for a couple more days).

They offered us some advice on where to visit in Turkey, what to eat, where the best kitesurf spots are... They even offered to drive us out for dinner in a near by city (Marmaris), to help us experience the culinary delights of Turkey.. including one dish of cow-stomach donair ;) We really enjoyed their company and it was too bad when it was time for them to return to Istanbul. But they were kind enough to invite us to stay at their place if we ended up in Istanbul, so maybe we'll see them again!

Akyaka is a tiny sleepy little town with not much to do except kitesurf.. really.. there's nothing to do there. But we enjoyed the B&B that we stayed at, the kitesurfing, and we got our first taste at how amazingly friendly Turkish people are!! Everyone we've met so far has been unbelievably nice and super helpful!

Travelling with Kitesurfing Gear

For the past year, we've been travelling the world super light.. we only have one 45 litre backpack each... and we love it!! But while in Kos, we bought a bunch of kitesurfing gear so now we're quite a bit more loaded down. Thanks to Peter and Kisztina who lent us their kitesurfing "golf" roller-bag to help make our travel days a bit easier! Our trick is to attach the rollerbag to the bottom of Dom's backpack.. we got a few funny looks but hey.. it works!! :)

Also, we thought it funny that a kite surf company would write "Golf" on their kitesurf equipment bags...! Krisztina told us that they do this because many airlines will let you check golf equipment in without charging an extra checked-bag fee!

Bodrum

A 30 minute ferry-ride from Kos led us to our next country of adventure. Our first port of call was Bodrum, a resorty coastal town in the South-West corner of Turkey. Here we took it easy walking the town, window shopping, going to a movie, and having a nice dinner on the beach. Nothing super special or fancy, but we enjoyed it... and the coolest part was the hotel's rooftop pool overlooking the city ;)

Animals Around the World

If you are Jen's friend on Facebook, you've probably noticed that she loves animals. Unfortunately for Jen, she is allergic to most of them.. but this doesn't stop her from getting close to them any chance she gets. We didn't have that many encounters, but here are pics from the few we had.

Bolivia's Pigeons

Ok, maybe not the coolest of animals, but it was pretty cool to have so many of them around us.

http://beyondthemapletree.com/relaxing-in-la-paz

Peru's Lamb

Peru is know for its llamas... but it seems Jen prefers lamb. Jen was also luck enough to spot a rare baby spectacle bear on the Inca trail but it ran away too fast for her to catch it.

http://beyondthemapletree.com/sacred-valley