Biking Beauties to Bus Excursions

And it seemed appropriate to finally finish out my series on my travels in Vietnam. Let's hope I can remember my details. It was so hard to write while we were there because honestly I kept falling asleep while writing. That is what being a busy traveler will do to you. I got back and immedietly seemed to fall back into this whirlwind of life and jet lag was pretty killer for a week or so. Alas we continued our journey on Day 4 with a bike ride through out the country side in the Hoi An region. Mind you I haven't ridden a bike in how many years? We were also in this county where bikes and mopeds are the perfered transportation methods, and people zoom around. Getting on that bike and riding through the village was terafing, but once we got into the ocuntryside and rode thorough the rice paddies, saw the water buffalo, walked on a bamboo bridge, I fell in love. This was the beauty I found in Vietnam. The people working their land, their livlihood, and the only way to really experience this is on a bike. I have to admit I was also deeply saddened during this journey. I kept thinking about the war and what the American presence did to these people in the countryside who just wanted to live their lives tending thier rice paddies, and we rounded them up and put them in essentially concentration camps, and the mass killing that happened. However, I think they have a beautiful spirit and have really taken back their way of life. As I mentioned before the views were amazing.

Bike line up

Hoi An region 

Bamboo bridge 

Rice patty cemetery 

Leaving our gorgeous resort hotel room was hard 

The Melissas

Marble mountains 

Dragon bridge in DaNang 

Boat we took to the Buddhist pagoda 

Traveling by boat was my favorite 

Adorable puppy on the boat 

Pagoda 

Gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it 

Second adorable puppy that day 

The monk that became famous for incinerating himself during the war was from this pagoda. This is usually where the car is displayed that transported him to the site, but it was being conserved. 

That night we adventured along the streets of Hue and saw this random site on a bridge. 

Street Food in Hue 

We had to drive along the coastal mountain road to get to Hue and saw some amazing views. 

Pit stop at a beach along the way for a restroom break. 

The brightest beach we have ever been on. 

Hope this little picture story has been enjoyable. Two more days of reflection and the Vietnam saga will be at end. Everyday I want to travel back to the beautiful country, and continue to learn more.

Attempt at a Plant Strong Lifestyle

I'm challenging myself to eating plant strong for the month of December. This may be one of the hardest months of the year to try this experiment, but I'm in a place in my life, where my health needs to be priority. I need to get to my goal weight, and learn to be less dependent on animal based products. I want to learn to absolutely love plant based foods more than I already do, and just learn new preparation methods. I'm combining this with a 10 day mini cleanse in preparation for my full Advocare 24 Day Challenge in January. I'm really excited about this new focus in my health and am using the E2 Diet to help guide my food wise. My goal is to share my experience here, and include what I'm eating, some food ideas, recipe critiques, and who knows I may even come up with my own version of "vegan" cooking. I'm looking forward to seeing where this journey will take me, and hopefully though getting into a crazy clean eating habit to reach my weight loss goal by March. This has been a three year journey for me and while I have learned a lot I'm ready to be done with weight loss and get to maintenance. I'm hoping that as I learn and develop new habits I'll be able to focus on my other goal of becoming an athlete of sorts. We'll see how my uncoordinated self does with that one. Here's to the journey.