SUPERLATIVES

It’s not the end just yet. We wrote these on the trip back home.

(They are a little out of order but they are fun anyway…)

Most famous Monuments:

•The Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)

•The Taj Mahal (India)

•The Great Wall of China (guess!)

Oceans/Waterways:

•The Aegean Sea

•The Mediterranean Sea
•The Indian Ocean

•The Pacific Ocean

•The Nile River

•The Ganges River

Biggest Cities:
•Hong Kong (China)
•Delhi (India)
•Istanbul (Turkey)
•Beijing (China)

Dirtiest cities:
1. Delhi (India)
2. Agra (India)
3. Cairo (Egypt)

Best weather:
•Dharamsala (India) - day we went to Children's Village
•Goreme (Turkey) - day we took tour
•Ayutthaya (Thailand) – day we saw the ruins
•Ubetu (Tanzania) – days in the hospital

Hottest country:
•Egypt

Coldest country:
•China

Nicest weather overall:
•Turkey

Rainy days (5):
•Hungry - half day
•Greece - morning showers
•Tanzania - drizzle after 'hiking' in Ubetu, afternoon showers after safari, night rains at Suzanne's

Most relaxing days:
•Beach day in Santorini (Greece)
•Malaria days (Tanzania)
•Suzanne's house (Tanzania)
•Thanksgiving day (Thailand)

Most Stressful Days
•The day we left Hungary (catching the plane)
•Thailand - trying to figure out a way out while the airport was taken over by government protestors!

Number of Airports visited
•13

Number of countries
•9 (including our 2 hour trip to Slovakia)

Best food
•India (Karla and Alicia)

•Turkey (Alicia)

Worst food
•Hungary (most nondescript)

Spiciest food experiences:
•Hungary (the green pepper)
•Thailand (when you forgot to ask for non spicy food)

Most Sick
•Day we visited the Pyramids

•On the Ferry from Zanzibar (Karla)

•Malaria (both)

Modes of Transportation:
•plane
•bus
•train
•bicycle rickshaw
•autorickshaw (aka tuktuk)
•camel
•student discount bus (walking!)
•safari jeep
•motorcycle
•motorcycle with sidecar (A's favorite!)
•ferry
•longboat
•felucca
•cruise ship
•car
•taxi
•subway
•Tram

Cheapest Country:
•India

Most Expensive Country:
•Greece

Countries where we made most friends:
•Turkey

•Egypt

•Tanzania

Where we made the least friends:
•India

•Greece

Cutest babies:
•Asia

Friendliest People:
•Tanzania, India, China

Least friendly:
1. Greece
2. Hungary

First place to re-visit:
1. India
2.Turkey

Worst bathroom experience:
•India (while taking a bus to Jodhpur)

Cleanest/Most organized city:
•Hong Kong

Worst smog EVER:
•Delhi
•Beijing
•Agra

Coolest skyline:
•Hong Kong
•Istanbul

Worst/Most annoying vendors:
•Egypt

•India

Best tea:
1. India (chai masala with milk)
2. Turkey (apple tea)

Best coffee:
•Turkey or Tanzania

Most animals:
•Tanzania (safaris) and India (in the streets)

Favorite word in new language:
•muzungu (Swahili- foreigner aka someone who’s not from Africa)

•aroi (Thai- delicious)

•farang (Thai- foreigner)

•imshee (Arabic- go away child!)

Number of marriage proposals:
•too many to count (in Egypt)

Favorite street animal:
•cow, dog, and monkey

Weirdest street animal:
•Elephant

•Cow

Best natural land formations:
•Mount Kilimanjaro
•The Himalayan Mountains
•The Goreme caves in Turkey

Best sunsets:
•Zanzibar
•Over caves in Goreme
•On the fort in Jaislamer
•over Hong Kong
•over Nile in Cairo on the first night
•from our cruise ship on Nile (with tea!)

Longest flight:
•HKG-JFK (16 hrs)

Longest lay-over:
•Tanzania (also most fun layover as we got to leave the airport)

Weirdest happenings/experiences:
•When our empty water bottle magically refilled half way at a restaurant in Hungary
•Seeing Guy in the SOK safari office and figuring out our flight was cancelled at the last minute
•When Hellen told us the day after that we drank goat's blood soup

Cultural idiosyncrasies that we still don't understand:
•urinating in public
•groping women in crowds
•not using toilet paper
•littering!!!
•smoking...on the Great Wall
•the art of bargaining
•cutting people in lines
•how all non-native English speakers have the same phrases world-wide
•why Turkish people are afraid of taking the train
•the Chill
•why rickshaw drivers won't take us for a more than fair price
•love/hate relationship with cows in India
•why roads are always undergoing construction but are never completed in Tanzania
•how you could possibly like goats blood and intestine soup
•Asian spitting through teeth
•Men’s long pinkie nail (Egypt and Asia)
•snot-rocketing everywhere (India)
•not feeding people in the hospital
•Walking around with your naked child to beg for money

Funniest cultural habits:
•babies with split pants as to avoid needing diapers
•peace sign for photos (China)
•Men running in the streets not for exercise (Turkey)
•street vendors teaching dogs in tutus to do tricks
•biker hand warmers
•saying yes and then walking away when they don't understand

Cutest cultural habits:
•hand-holding amongst the elders everywhere and all Indian men
•getting up to give your seat to an elder

Weirdest foods:
•Ayran (yogurt milk drink)
•goat innards (nothing goes to waste)
•Turkish delight sweets (they taste like plastic with nuts)

Best new skill:
•Bargaining

Religions we've learned about:
•Islam
•Tibetan Buddhism
•Ancestor worship
•Buddhism
•Hinduism

Favorite traditional outfits:
•Khanga (India)
•Sari (India)

Best purchase:
•African shorts we had tailored

Best bargains:
•India and China

Most important lessons learned:
•generosity
•patience

Strangest person we've met:
•woman in Tanzania when fixing the car. She kept talking in gibberish about snakes and such.

Most unexpectedly interesting person we stumbled upon:
•Carpet vendor named Ali (Turkey)

Languages we've learned:
•Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin

Language we learned the most of:
1. Swahili
2. Arabic

Coolest things we've done:
•Pet tigers (Thailand)
•Sailed felucca (Aswan- Egypt)
•Climbed Great Wall (China)

Place where we felt most at home:
•Noha's in Egypt

•Katie's in Thailand
• Lucy's in Beijing

Shortest time in a country or province:
•Slovakia

•Zanzibar

•Hong Kong

Longest time in a country:
•Tanzania

Tallest travelers we met:
•Daniel and Jake (Turkey)

Shortest traveler:
•cute baby sitting next to us on the plane from Beijing to Hong Kong

Funniest experiences:
•saying goodbye to Daniel and he was on A's shoulders while K was on Jake's
•impromptu group picture on the Great Wall

Tallest mountain:
•Kilimanjaro

Highest we've been
•Ngorongoro (only about 3,000 meters)

Scariest moment
•finding out about the Mumbai attacks while stranded in Thailand
•A Lost K at the airport
•Almost missing our flight in Hungary

Best new taste
•Fruit curry (India)

Worst new taste
•Blood soup (Tanzania)
•Mold cookies (China)

Best dessert:
•Baklava (Turkey)

Places we want to go next!
•Laos, Cambodia, Tibet, Nepal, Spain (K), Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon, Madagascar, all of South and Central America...the list goes on!

Special thanks to...
•Our hostel owner for giving us a good introduction to traveling (Hungary); Irmak and Ugur for being great hosts (Turkey); Noha and Karam for taking us in and driving us everywhere (Egypt); Hellen, Eric, Apo and George for helping us live with Malaria and for showing us how to live with just enough (Tanzania); Suzanne, Graham, and Chris for saving us from Malaria and letting us stay in the oasis of Arusha (Tanzania); Mr. and Mrs. Prasad for pampering us on our last day in India; Katie and Mike for taking care of us in Thailand and making Thanksgiving a reality; Lucy for being so generous, Karen for helping us get around Beijing, and Mr. Li for patiently driving us around (China).
•Our most faithful and loving companions: Diego and Fernando (our backpacks)
•Our families and our faithful blog readers
•And of course to all the new friends we've made on the road.

So THANK YOU all again for helping us make this trip! (Don’t mind the misspellings)

ke se nem (Hungarian)

teshekewr (Turkish)

efhiristo (Greek)

shokran (Arabic)

asante (Swahili)

shukriya (Urdu)

duniwaad (Hindu)

kap kun kaa (Thai)

m goih (Cantanese)

xie xie (Mandarin)